Abandoned baby in Cacém can return to his family

At just 22 days old, he was abandoned by his mother on Tuesday night in front of the Centro Social Bautista, a church in Cacém. On a piece of paper, written as if it were the child speaking, an appeal: “Please take care of me as your child.” The baby was left in a carrycot, “in good condition”, at a time when a meeting was taking place on the premises. Along with the newborn, who was found by those present at that meeting, there was a suitcase “with the necessary goods to take care of her at that time” and a letter, which highlighted the “lack of conditions” of the mother to care , confirmed the former commissioner of the Public Security Police (PSP) Carla Duarte. “The letter implies that the son was not left lightly. It was with regret on the part of the mother ”, she stressed.

Transported to the Amadora-Sintra Hospital, where despite being in good health, the baby now has an indefinite future. Coordination will be made between social workers and Santa Casa da Misericórdia, but the Sintra Family and Minors Court will have to decide if there are relatives with sufficient conditions to stay with the newborn – otherwise it will be in charge of an institution or even a Host family. A_PSP has already communicated the data at its disposal to the Commission for the Protection of Children and Youth, as well as to the court, in an attempt to identify the baby’s relatives.

Crime or asking for help?

“This is a police case and a crime. And now the PSP is investigating if there is something that can detect who has abandoned the baby. It will be delivered to Social Security. And then it’s realizing whether the mother really can’t have a child. Because it can happen that the baby returns to the mother, because Portuguese law allows it ”, underlines i Rui Abrunhosa Gonçalves, forensic psychologist and professor at the University of Minho.

Read the full article in the print edition of the newspaper i.