The Birth of the Child

• Author: Jeffrey Kasky; Robert Andrew Kasky
• Pages: 67-69

67

CHAPTER

12

The Birth of the Child

Without a doubt, the most anxious time for the family is the time when the birth mother is in the hospital

just about to or just having given birth. This is the time when there is a convergence of anxiety, relief, hap-

piness, sadness, and many more emotions. There are a number of people involved at this particular time.

They include, in addition to the birth parent(s) and the prospective adoptive family, the hospital’s case

manager and/or social worker, friends and family of the birth parent(s), and, on occasion, a representative

from the state’s child welfare agency. This is in addition to the nursing staff taking care of the birth mother

and the baby’s nurses in the newborn nursery or the newborn intensive care unit.

Our experience is that most of the various interested parties are supportive of the birth parent(s)’

adoption plans but occasionally there will be people with a different agenda attempting to derail the

adoption process that has been evolving and nurtured for so many months during the pregnancy by so

many people with so much care and concern.

As do all patients in a health-care facility, birth mothers are medical patients who have rights. They

have rights in the hospital, in the obstetrician’s office, in the laboratory, and wherever else they are treated.

Some of these rights are codified legal rights, and some are moral and ethical rights. These rights include

the right not to be belittled or to have their highly personal adoption decision challenged, questioned, or

doubted. They have the right not to be badgered into or out of their adoption decision. They have the

right to privacy and confidentiality at all phases of the pregnancy as well as during labor, delivery, and

recovery. The birth mother has the right to choose, subject to hospital protocol, who she wants present in

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