Default abuse: a poorly known mode of abuse

Babies are dependent, very dependent, so much that they always need an adult to feed them, change their clothes, wash them, help them move, calm them and stimulate them. They are because they have to be this way, because they grow little by little and learn little by little the different facets of life, becoming more and more autonomous.

For this to happen, parents have to be present in the process and have to give babies everything they need at all times.

When this does not happen, a baby is being left unattended and, as a result, a baby is being stopped taking care of as it deserves and needs, so that situation could be considered as maltreatment. It is not an active abuse in which the parents do something that bothers the baby, but a passive abuse in which the opposite happens: the parents do not take care of their baby, so they are carrying out the call abuse due to omission of care.

The best known type of abuse is one in which there are physical aggressions, screams and / or sexual abuse, but not being better known is more frequent. He Negligence due to negligence or omission of care is estimated to be 70% of the total.

In the Canary Islands Agency for Research, Innovation and Information Society (ACIISI) they are conducting a joint investigation with the Center of Neurosciences of Cuba about the lack of sensitivity of some mothers to the signals emitted by their babies.

The impact that this type of parenting can have on babies and children has been studied for not too long. The first data that comes from the studies that were done in the orphanages of Romania in the nineties, where there was a caregiver for every 50 children, they lived overcrowded and without any stimulus and the result was obviously devastating (causing a great social and political alarm at the conditions in which these children grew up).

Results of the study being carried out

According to the authors of the study, the most common causes of negligence on the part of the parents are postpartum depression, other types of depressions that the mother or father could have previously and complicated family situations, whether due to economic problems, violence or drug addiction.

It could also occur in pregnancies with teenage mothers, if the mother is not mature enough and continues to focus too much on herself, if the parents do not care when feeding the child and give them inadequate food for their age, if the environment in which the child lives does not have optimal hygienic conditions, etc.

The point is that when assessing "insensitive" mothers, comparing them with "control" mothers, evident reactivity differences have been observed: both groups of mothers were shown photos with faces of crying children and in mothers "Control" appeared a basic automatic process of wanting to go to the child, as if to want to comfort him, while in mothers considered negligent this process did not appear.

As the study authors comment:

In negligent mothers (the process) is not working, so it is not possible for them to arrive at the mental elaboration that children may have needs of cold, hunger, walk ... Thing that occurs in the other mothers.

Faced with the problem, a prevention project

When a case of negligence or abuse due to omission of care by parents is known, social services are usually considered, those that take away the child because you cannot take care of it correctly, as it happened not long ago with Habiba and her daughter Soul.

I know cases of families living without resources that do not go to social workers for fear that "they realize that I have nothing and take away the children." In these cases the problem is not not wanting or not knowing how to take care of children, but not having what to do it with.

For this reason it is to praise the work that is being done in this regard, since instead of cutting for the healthy and breaking families, work is being done to help “insensitive” mothers and fathers, with projects in which they share time with mothers and fathers who do spend more time caring for their children.

Thus, as those responsible for the programs have:

Parents tell their experiences and, seeing what others tell them and do, they learn much more than with the typical talk.

The truth is that it seems like a fantastic program. The first objective must be to give parents tools to learn, to see what their children's needs are, so that they understand and act accordingly.

Normally it is easier to do it if you learn with other parents who have had the same concerns and problems, talking about you to you, than with professionals who tell you what you have to do, like a talk (as the authors of the program say).

He abuse due to omission of care it can lead a child to suffer or, worse, even to die, if he is not fed correctly, if he is not treated or if he is not given the medication he needs, to give some examples. That is why it is important to try to recognize it and act as soon as possible for the good of the baby.

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