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Abandoned Babies Celebrate Their First Christmas in Greece's Largest Maternity Hospital

Marianthi Nikolopoulou snuggles an abandoned baby at Elena Venizelou Hospital

The holiday season has an additional meaning to workers at Greece’s largest maternity hospital. The babies in their care are not enveloped in the normal comforts of home and family which we especially associate with the Christmas season, but are completely reliant on them to provide all the love and nurturing they need.
This realization makes doctors, nurses and social workers at Greece’s largest maternity hospital feel an additional sense of responsibility as they care for abandoned babies during the holidays.
Hospital staff must provide not only care, but also love and a warm snuggle to the babies which have been left behind by their mothers after giving birth.
For Marianthi Nikolopoulou, chief social worker at Elena Venizelou Hospital in Athens, this is a role she takes on with relish and pride.
Speaking to the Greek Reporter, the mother of two says, “I feel as if I am their real mum… During Christmas, when other kids expect presents from Santa Claus, the only thing that these babies are expecting from us is a warm hug, love and care.”

Nikolopoulou says that she is not alone. “Everyone at the hospital considers these babies as if they are their own…These kids are our next-door kids, our kids.”
She says that the women who go to the hospital to give birth “are usually not aware of the issues surrounding child care.”
“Many have not been to a doctor or gone to a hospital for tests during their pregnancy … There is the danger therefore that newborns could have health problems.”
Many of the women use drugs or have psychological problems and other family members might not be able to support them.
Elena Venizelou is the largest public maternity hospital in Greece

The children stay in the hospital for between two and two and a half months.
“Maybe it’s long time for a newborn to stay in a hospital but is necessary so we can work with the mother to ascertain whether she wants and is in a position to reclaim the child,” Nikolopoulou says.
She refrains from using the term “abandoned”, as some of these babies will eventually be reclaimed by their biological mothers or other members of their extended family.
According to the latest available data, from the year 2015, close to 40 percent of abandoned children in Greece are eventually returned to their families.
Dr. Giorgos Liosis

Dr. Giorgos Liosis, head of the premature birth unit at the hospital, says that his primary responsibility is providing health care for the abandoned babies.
However, after ensuring that their health is satisfactory, and if the biological mother or members of the family do not come forward, he consults with the appropriate judicial authorities. The child can only then be transferred to the public hospital Mitera, where adoption procedures can then begin.
The process for the adoption of a child can take months. Finding an appropriate parent for an abandoned child is an extremely involved procedure which includes a rigorous profiling of the prospective parents.
All data relating to abandoned children are stored at Mitera Hospital. In the future, the information may be made available to the child if he or she wants to trace their biological mother for social or medical reasons.
An average of 35 abandoned children are adopted from Mitera each year. The number of people who apply to adopt is far larger, usually between 150-200 each year. This results in a lengthy, and no doubt frustrating, period on the waiting list for approved parents.
However, for older children or children with special needs, adoption is a much easier and quicker process.
The problem of abandoned newborn babies is of course nothing new. However, some say that there has been an increase of such cases since the economic crisis hit Greece.
Others claim that the reasons which lead mothers to abandon children are not primarily economic, but are due to their psychological condition, health problems, drug abuse or to changed circumstances relating to their partner.

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