It’s a miracle. Born on Friday October 13 and abandoned a few hours later in a trash can, Noah Briac Alban is still in care within the walls of the Rennes University Hospital maternity ward. Saved by firefighters, the infant is currently the subject of a temporary placement order which offers him state protection. Will he know his mother’s name? We ignore it for the moment. The woman who appears to be his mother is currently in police custody. Aged 17, this woman from Mayotte was presented as the mother of the child by a 23-year-old man from the same archipelago, who allegedly had sexual relations with her at the beginning of the year. Since Thursday and the placement in police custody of the alleged parents, investigators from the Rennes vice squad have been trying to understand how the child could have found himself abandoned in a buried container in the Sarah Bernhardt district.
Beyond the emotion aroused, this extraordinary story raises a number of questions. Who threw the baby away? Did the mother give birth alone? Did the father know about the pregnancy? But above all: why did the young woman not choose to go to the maternity ward? To discuss this delicate question of birth under 20 minutes asked Véronique Lefébvre. A forensic psychologist, she has notably worked on behavioral and criminal analysis and published the book “The Quest” where she evokes the true story of a mother who searched all her life to find her son. For years, she received women who had given birth under children from these anonymous deliveries. In France, there have been around 700 per year since its appearance in the Civil Code in 1993. A marginal phenomenon that we almost never talk about but which leaves a lasting mark.
How can we explain that a woman decides not to recognize her baby?
Véronique Lefébvre: The reasons are multiple. Most of the time, we have to ask ourselves the question of the circumstances of conception. Some women have been attacked or victims of rape, others experience unwanted pregnancies resulting from casual relationships. Women give birth under X because they were not able to abort or did not want to. Some of them consider abortion to be murder and prefer to give up their child. Everyone has their beliefs, their religion. It’s a feminine choice that shouldn’t be judged. Not all women are cut out to be mothers. It’s not instinctive. I consider being a parent to be the most difficult job in the world. And above all, it is not an obligation. It’s not always easy to love. Before the legalization of abortion, there were regularly abandoned children in front of churches in particular.
Can a woman who gave birth under X forget her child?
Never ! When you are a mother and you give birth, you never forget. Women who decide to give birth under X live their whole lives with this ghost. Most of the time, she doesn’t talk about it. Who could you tell that you have decided not to keep your child and give him or her away? Can you imagine telling this to your new companion? And even to your children? How would they react to finding out they have a brother or sister somewhere? Revealing such a secret has consequences for a large number of people, not just the mother and her child. Society is there to judge you. However, we can see this as a form of love.
A mother who doesn’t feel capable of loving or raising her child and who decides to give him to a loving family is a beautiful proof of love, don’t you think? Women who decide not to recognize their child are judged very harshly, because in our minds, a mother is never supposed to disappear. These women did not kill their child, they simply judged that they were not fit to keep it and preferred to offer it to others. It is a form of sharing with families who are unable to have one.
Especially since these women have the particularity of often being alone…
It’s always like that. And we always blame the mothers. But where are the fathers in these cases? The progenitor is never present. The men disappear and leave the women alone. For me, this shows a great lack of responsibility and cowardice. When we judge a woman by her choice, we are only looking at half of reality.
How do you explain the discovery of this baby abandoned in a trash can in Rennes?
We won’t be able to. Especially since we don’t know what happened. Did this woman give birth alone? Did the father know she was pregnant? And who decided to put this baby in this bag? What is certain is that there was a desire to make it disappear. But not actually kill him. Forgive me, but if they had wanted to kill him, they could have (they are suspected of attempted assassination). There, we found this baby with his placenta in a trash can a few meters from the mother’s home. They left him alive, long enough for him to be found. If she did this alone, she must have been in terrible loneliness and distress. At 17, do you think a woman is fully conscious of such an act? It’s horrible for her and for him. I don’t know if she will ever get over it, nor her baby. A child is like a sponge. How did he feel during the pregnancy? What will his feeling of abandonment be?
If it is not recognized within two months, this baby will be considered to have been born under X. How do we live with such a past?
Many children born under X have complicated lives. I’m not saying they aren’t happy but they live their whole lives with questions. The first question is: what are my origins? People want to know where they come from. They still wonder why their mother left them. People always ask me: did she love me? It’s obvious. When a woman decides to leave her child, for me, it is because she has her reasons. She does it because she thinks it’s for the best. But this leaves a big void for children. In France, full adoption radiates all information from the biological mother and father. It’s like we’re witnessing a second birth. Everything is destroyed. There is something to rethink. In the wording already. How can we still talk about children born under X?
In your book, you tell the moving story of a mother who gave birth under X.
Yes, it was a woman who confided in me because she wanted to find her child. She came from an aristocratic family who forced her to give up her child without her consent. It was the 1950s and she was only 17 years old. She lived her whole life with this secret. She feels like she could never be a good mother. His two sons never knew it. She had a hard time loving them because her secret was so heavy to bear, she felt so guilty. She asked me because she wanted to find her son. She was 80 years old but she wanted to meet him.
Did she succeed?
Yes, we managed to find him. The reunion was very beautiful at the start. Afterwards, there were differences of character. When you wait your whole life to meet a child and you’re faced with an adult, it’s not easy to manage. You have two completely unknown injured adults face to face, who are strangers and who share only one biological connection. These are meetings that need to be prepared. Some want to settle their score. I advise against it. The question is not simple for adoptive families either. When you have raised a child, do you want to see a second mother arrive twenty years later? It’s a huge, secret, intimate wound.
Do all children born under X ask to see their parents again?
Not all, no. They often do this when they become parents themselves. This awakens a need to know its roots. The feeling of abandonment does not go away. They can live happily but they will always carry the scars of a void to be filled.