Investigation into abandoned neonates admitted to Salt River Forensic Pathology Mortuary, Cape Town

Abstract

The high rates of abandoned neonatal remains admitted to Salt River Mortuary (SRM), Cape Town, and the dearth of literature published in South Africa prompted a retrospective assessment of these cases to describe the profile and assess the scope of the post-mortem investigation of abandoned neonates, as well as determine the prosecution rate of abandoned live births. Demographic details, scene information and post-mortem findings were obtained from medico-legal case files concerning non-viable fetuses, stillbirths and concealment of birth cases admitted to SRM between 1 January 2012 and 31 December 2016 (n=249). Despite the majority of the cases being natural deaths, the cause of death frequently remained ‘undetermined’ in these cases, often due to the presence of decomposition. Histological analyses were only performed in a small fraction of undetermined cases. Furthermore, the hypothesis that the prosecution rate of abandoned live births is extremely low was supported by this study, with only one case prosecuted in the 5-year period. For the remainder of the cases, the court status was given as either ‘under investigation’ (47.8%) or ‘case closed’ (47.8%). In the majority of the instances, the case was closed due to the unknown identity of the biological mother; however, DNA analyses were not performed in all of these cases. Overall, the data highlighted the need for the development and implementation of standard protocols, and recommendations were made for conducting the medico-legal investigation of abandoned neonates in a South African setting.