For most mothers, the first embrace and skin-on-skin contact with her newborn, moments after delivery, is one of the most precious and magical moments in the journey of parenthood. But sometimes, perhaps because of family breakdown, addiction or perceptions about a disability, a mother turns away from her baby and abandons him or her at birth.
And so begins the worst possible life-start for many of the 1.3 million children who reside in the care of the state across Central Asia and Central & Eastern Europe.
In those fragile early days of life, the pathway to state care is lonely and brutal. The child will often be taken from the maternity ward to a large-scale state residential institution adorned not with family memories, warmth and affection but rather regulated by administrators with filing cabinets, staff shifts and often even staff uniforms.
[For more of this story, written by Benjamin Perks, go to http://blogs.unicef.org/2015/0...childhood-adversity/]
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