Child Abandonment in the U.S.

Paper Summary:

This paper examines how child abandonment continues to represent an enormous challenge for social workers and the healthcare community in the United States. It analyzes the incidence and causes of child abandonment, recent legislation and trends in the law, followed by a summary of the research in the conclusion. It looks at how abandoned infants tend to generate enormous interest and how very little academic or systematic study is available of the psychological state of their mothers and consideration of their fathers.

From the Paper:

"There is a paucity of academic literature on the phenomenon; the few studies that do exist relate to abandonment in the face of poverty, war or extreme disease. Sherr and Hackman point to Otieno et al. (1999), who compared 82 abandoned babies in Nairobi with mothered babies and reported significant measures of developmental delay or growth stunting (however, no psychosocial measures were taken). Similarly, Maza et al. (1999) described the U.S. "boarder baby syndrome" in which babies who are most often associated with drug use and HIV backgrounds were abandoned within hospital settings. Sherr and Hackman say that infants are at particular risk within the first few hours of birth. ?Abandonment at the time of birth seems more common than abandonment later on and carries with it different psychological explanations and ramifications."

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