While the police records show 59 babies were abandoned by their biological parents in the last four years in the city, adoption agencies and shelter homes say that the statistics are just the tip of the iceberg.

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Adoption centres say that less than 50% children at their centre are referred to by the police, the rest come from birth parents, usually unwed mothers, wanting to abandon their child post delivery.

Though a majority of unwed mothers belong to economically disadvantaged families and are uneducated, shelter homes and adoption agencies say that cases of educated, living-out-of-home students or working professionals walking into the centres to give up babies do happen but are rare.

“Despite options to terminate pregnancy before four months, most girls try to hide or pretend they are merely getting plump etc. They don’t inform parents until too late. Many girls don’t abort babies because of misinformation. They feel abortions take many days and parents would question them about the absence,” said Madhuri Abhyankar, director of Society of Friends of Sassoon Hospital (SOFOSH).

The centre gets 12-15 such cases yearly of unwed mothers who are referred to shelter homes, if their parents refuse to accept girls.

‘In most cases, communication with parents wasn’t strong and that’s why they didn’t confide in them or seek help,” she said.

Renuka Mahajan Trust managing trustee, Narendra Kharale, said the centre too receives many inquiries from unwed mothers.

“The girls have little information on contraception or abortion methods which is the reason why many girls don’t terminate pregnancy till late. Secondly, their partners keep making false promises and flee during the last stage of pregnancy. Besides sex education for girls, awareness about the law and confiding in parents are very important,” he said.

According to Abhyankar, a worrying trend is that girls try all sorts of things from consuming multiple abortion pills to visiting quacks and even hurting oneself with sharp objects to lose the pregnancy.

Bhartiya Samaj Seva Kendra (BSSK) assistant director, Maina Shetty, said the birth parents finding themselves in difficult situations should approach an NGO working in childcare/adoption or child welfare committee (CWC).

“A list of agencies can be found on the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) website. In the advanced stage of pregnancy, the biological mother needs to take care and termination can be at risk for the mother and the child’s health,” she advised.