Shock figures released on killings of newborn babies

NEARLY 20 out of 100 000 newborns are killed in South Africa, according to a new study.

This, the authors say, is an underestimate of the true picture of infanticide in the country.

The study, the first of its kind, found that a child was mostly likely to be murdered in the first 24 hours after birth.

Most homicides occurred among babies less than a week old, and the leading cause of death was abandonment.

According to Statistics SA, more than a million babies are born in South Africa each year.

The study used records from large and small mortuaries across the country for 2009.

The sample covered both urban and rural areas, and followed on a larger study on mortality.

Researchers also contacted police investigating some cases.

After abandonment, other causes of death were blunt trauma and strangulation.

Mothers were the perpetrators in two-thirds of the deaths.

However, the lead author in the study, Professor Naeemah Abrahams, of the Gender and Health Research Unit at the SA Medical Research Council, called the findings conservative, considering that they did not include sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) incidents which could be unnatural deaths.

Abrahams said her research showed a failure of health and social services to protect babies and help vulnerable mothers.

“There is so much more than just blaming the mother for this, as many do not know that they can give the baby up.

“We need to get this message across – children do not need to die,” Abrahams said.

There was also a need for initiatives like baby boxes, where unwanted infants could be left.

Many women, she said, were unable to access abortion clinics.

Child protection consultant Joan van Niekerk expressed concern at the high levels of infanticide in the country.

She agreed that more should be done to help vulnerable mothers.

“We need to ask why so many young women abandon their babies,” she said.

Van Niekerk said more should be done to recognise vulnerable mothers in state maternity wards and to help them.