When parents feel desperate, they sometimes take desperate measures. There have been multiple stories recently of newborns being abandoned because their parents are unable to care for them. Even though resources exist for parents to safely leave their newborns if they must, there is a stigma to not caring for the child you gave birth to.
The stigma causes parents to put their children in harm's way, which can have worse consequences. Recently, a mom in Russia allegedly abandoned her newborn outside on an anthill. Now, that mom is facing attempted murder charges.
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The newborn was found by a random passerby.
The 1-day-old baby girl was found screaming on an anthill by a random passerby on July 23. The passerby, Nikolai Pakhomov, found the newborn covered in painful ant bites and severely sunburned. According to the Daily Mail Online, Pakhomov told local news that he thought the baby's cries were kittens mewing.
The newborn was treated and declared healthy.
"Automatically, I dialled '112,'" to call the paramedics," Pakhomov told the news outlet. "I took off my T-shirt, wrapped the baby in it, and carried her to the ambulance."
Medical professionals declared that the infant was healthy, aside from the sunburn and the bug bites. They called in a priest, who named the baby Maria Nikolaevna, in honor of the man who rescued her.
Her birth mother claims she was simply unable to care for her newborn.
Police tracked down the girl's birth mother, Nadezhda Sorokina, who admitted she gave birth to Maria on July 22. Sorokina is a single mom to three kids, and she told the police she could not afford to feed a fourth. The authorities have charged her with attempted murder.
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Someone close to the family believes the abandonment was planned.
Veronika Dokukina, one of Sorokina's neighbors, thinks that maybe this wasn't a last-minute decision and that the woman decided to abandon her baby after a fight with the infant's father.
"I have a small child myself — a 1-year-old. I was giving her baby clothes, and she said, 'I don't need them anymore,'" Dokukina said.
"I asked, 'What happened?' She said, 'He stressed me out, I got so nervous that I had a miscarriage.'"
She added, "It seems she didn't have a miscarriage at all, she hid it. It means she planned it in advance."
Despite her start, the baby will be fine.
The father of Sorokina's newborn is a different man than the father of her three other children. Her ex-husband claims he knew nothing of her actions. He added that even though she was never the greatest mother, her actions were a surprise.
Despite the baby's rough start, the Daily Mail Online reported that there is already a couple interested in adopting Maria.
