Safe care and adoption for Indian Babies

Our Snehankur adoption center has been helping abandoned children and their mothers for the last 15 years. We may be an adoption center but our focus has always been on our vision of helping and supporting women and girls who face difficulties and discrimination in their pregnancies and supporting their babies once they are born. Our support goes beyond the safe birth of the babies as we counsel and support mothers to take their rightful place back in society, with or without their babies. In fact, we are still in contact with the mother of our first ever adopted child.

We never know what each new day will bring, facing a range of challenges while rescuing and rehabilitating innocent infants and / or young mothers. As Mother’s Day approaches we would like to share a story of one of our brave mothers who overcame adversity to bring new life into this world. Sneha is just one of many girls who we work with forced to make difficult choices in the face of gender bias, age old traditions and societal pressure.

A bright student who was pursuing a career in civil services Sneha (21 yrs) had cleared the preliminary round of the required competitive exams for these positions and was getting ready for her finalswith some private training classes. Here she met and fell in love with a fellow student who promised to carry their relationship to the next level and Sneha came to trust him. However, when she fell pregnant, and asked him to marry her he made his excuses and fled.

Sneha was terrified to tell her parents who belong to the farming community and are from a low economic background. Ignorant to her situation, they took some private loans against their farm land and reduced the burden of supporting Sneha by forcing her into a marriage. Sneha did really well at hiding her pregnancy from her husband and in-laws, but as soon as she delivered her baby her new family immediately abandoned them both. While her parents were in a state of shock Sneha was also suffering a mental breakdown. On hand was one of our volunteers who took control and called our team. The call came in at 4am and, our team member Santosh started out immediately on the 3.5 hour journey for the government hospital where Sneha had given birth, accompanied by a nurse and a female care taker. After counseling Sneha and her parents, he brought them to Snehankur, our adoption center. After completing the legalities, Sneha and the baby were taken to a private hospital for check-ups and treatment. The gynaecologist advised that Sneha and child needed to be admitted for observation and treatment as both were mentally and physically very weak. Sneha’s hemoglobin count had dropped to 5% and she needed an urgent blood transplant and medication. Her baby boy also required special ICU as he had a low birth weight.

After few days of hospitalization, with neither her parents nor her in-laws willing to take her back, Sneha returned to our adoption center to start the process of relinquishing her son. She seemed to be still under tremendous pressure and shock and the next day she completely lost her vision. Our ever alert team rushed her to an ophthalmologist who referred her to a neurologist who advised this was a temporary blindness, psychosomatic in nature,that would recover in time.

Sneha has gradually recovered and regained her normal vision and her son is also fit and healthy and awaiting adoption. With all other support gone, Sneha is grateful that Snehalaya is helping her to continue to pursue her exams and reach her career goals.

So we would like to thank you for supporting us to continue to help girls and women like Sneha, offering alternatives to their innocent babies and helping them to fulfill their dreams and forget their nightmares.

Links:

• http://www.snehalaya.org

Thanks to your support we have successfully rescued and provided over 700 children to date with excellent families and homes. As a result we were the number one adoption agency last year, having successfully placed the largest number of babies in adoptive families. This now includes 28 babies which have been adopted internationally and are now living in countries such as Italy, Spain, Malta, UK and America.

Despite our work to advocate and shift perceptions, it’s a sad fact that girl babies are still considered a burden by many Indian parents and we still see many more girls abandoned and left in our care. For example, about six months ago, a nursing home in a small town in our dristrict was approached by a couple. The wife was about six months pregnant and having illegally determined their baby was a girl, the couple wanted to abort the pregnancy. As it is illegal to abort a pregnancy beyond 12 weeks the doctor rightly refused to perform the procedure, instead counseling the couple. They left but returned within a month with the wife, having taken matters into her own hands to try and get rid of her baby, in labor. The medical team helped her to deliver the baby girl, but at only seven months of pregnancy she was in a critical condition with a very low birth weight. She needed specialist, premature care and emergency medical intervention and was admitted to hospital.

The family remained adamant that they did not welcome this new burden and immediately relinquished their baby, leaving her in the care of the hospital. The team there contacted our adoption center and she was placed in our care. Our team named her Pavitra (The Pure One).

With the proper medical care and lots of love from the team she soon gathered strength and was deemed fit and healthy, except for a condition called anotia, absence of one external ear. Fortunately this did not affect her hearing abilities and after consulting with a pediatric surgeon our team established that there were treatments available to replace her missing ear. Despite this we could not find any Indian parents willing to take on this responsibility and she was legally released for international adoption. It didn’t take long for her to be selected by an American couple willing to adopt and complete her medical treatment in the US.

So it was Pavitra was one of eight babies who took part in a mega adoption ceremony last month. The seven other children were also welcomed into the families from India and Malta all of whom emotionally thanked our team for giving their children such a wonderful and loving home while they were waiting for adoption. Among the guests attending the ceremony was the doctor who had delivered and brought Pavitra to our center. While the American couple was overwhelmed to hear their daughter’s story they were extremely thankful to the doctor and Snehankur team who had saved her life and brought them to her.

We believe that every child has a right to life with a loving home and family that will ensure their overall wellbeing and development and are grateful to you for providing the support that enables us to rescue girls such as Pavitra and unite them with the families that are ready and willing to give them the love and security they deserve.

Links:

• Visit our website