Rise in babies in care proceedings raises fears of unnecessary adoptions, experts tell BBC

Broadhurst acknowledges that term is “politically loaded” and the modern care system is very different from the coercive practices that took place mainly between 1949 and 1976 – and for which the government recently apologised for cases in England.

But she says it “is actually what’s happening because parents do not agree”.

“They want to continue to be in contact with a child,” she says. “Even parents who feel they couldn’t look after a child at that point find it particularly brutal that they’re going to have no contact, or very little contact, with that child until they’re 18.”

One birth mother, Jean, tells us she never wanted to give up her daughter, Tye, for adoption – and describes it as “forced”. Her local council says it followed a lawful process.

Jean was separated from her daughter for 16 years, after Tye was taken into care at 11 weeks’ old and then adopted at the age of two.

Now, with Tye an adult, they are reunited. When she turned 18, having struggled with adoption and questions about her identity, Tye looked for her mother on social media.

“I knew I had a mum somewhere and it wasn’t the people I was growing up with,” she says – describing her adoption as something that had left her “completely alone” without a “whole chunk of heritage”.

When Jean became pregnant, she was looking forward to being a mother. But she had concerns too: “The only thing I knew for certain was that I was disabled, I couldn’t look after myself properly, so I wasn’t sure how I was going to be able to look after a baby, so I needed help.”

Her local authority at the time, Newham Council in east London, told her such help was not available, she says. Tye was put into foster care, but Jean was able to see her often.

There had been multiple assessments and residential placements as Jean tried to keep Tye. But professionals, including doctors and social workers, ultimately advised the court that Tye needed a stable, permanent family and that Jean could not provide it.

Jean says she fought and “gave it my all” through years of court proceedings. She even asked if she could have visiting rights, in a similar way to a parent in a divorce. “I was told that was an unrealistic expectation,” she says.