LETTERS: I read with sadness the multiple media reports about babies being dumped nationwide. Almost every other day, there are similar reports. Recently, it was reported that 53 baby dumping occurred between January and June this year.
So, on average, for every 3 days, one baby is dumped in Malaysia. These tragic statistics has not decreased for more than 15 years despite the policies and laws that are in place.
In fact, just last month, a teenage mother was charged with murder when she allegedly flung her baby out of the apartment in a state of shock over her unplanned birth. The carnage will continue with more babies dying in the most unimaginable circumstances and teenage lives and their future destroyed completely due to moments of misjudgment.
Various plans and policies to tackle baby dumping involves further studies on existing programmes and its effectiveness. There is also the question of effectiveness of baby hatches and proposals to increase legal literacy among teenagers making sure that they know the serious consequences of baby dumping.
Many of these solutions do not tackle the root causes, neither had been shown to have significant effect on reduction of baby dumping cases. Often in addition, placing the burden of the problem on teenagers such as having unplanned pregnancies, not knowing where to seek help or what to do plus being scared to ask for help are counter productive in ending baby dumping.
We can't legislate our way out of this complex problem, neither can we continually place the blame on teenagers and adolescents, hoping to change their behaviour. Clearly, our existing programmes, policies and laws are not working.
The tumultuous transition from adolescence to adulthood involves complex hormonal changes that affect physical, mental and sexual development. Legislation is the least of what these bodily hormonal upheavals in any adolescents is going to understand.
Neither is stigmatisation of natural biological transitions that teenagers experience, assist in any way to alleviate the complexity of their challenges in avoiding unplanned pregnancies. There is concrete evidence globally that imparting comprehensive sexuality education and access to sexual and reproductive health services decrease unplanned teenage pregnancies.
In addition, destigmatisation of unwed mothers, creating a supportive, non punitive & non judgmental system for teenagers in need are associated with decreased baby dumping. The answers are known for decades, yet we continually institute measures that are ineffectual, stop-gap or worse, subscribe to misguided beliefs that perpetuate more harm rather than good or deviate from what's originally intended.
The implementation of evidence based policies and programmes is critical if we are going to have a fighting chance in tackling this extremely serious issue. Policy makers, authorities, parents and communities need to embrace the problem with openness, accepting what's been shown to really work rather than only institute what is acceptable norms that fail all the time.
It's time that we adopt a new mind set and complete overhaul of our programmes and policies so that we are able to ensure no baby is ever dumped in this country again.
DR JOHN TEO
Consultant Obstetrician & Gynaecologist
Kota Kinabalu
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times