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City-level estimates; country centres are used where a town cannot be located. Geography: GeoNames and Natural Earth.
| Mother / Alias ↕ | Quick summary ↕ | Outcome ↕ | Jurisdiction ↕ | Year ↕ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Elizabeth Mort | Social workers and police took Elizabeth's newborn daughter from home for five days after a hospital opiate test picked up poppy seeds from an everything bagel. | Baby Returned Returned after five days | New Castle, PA, United States | 2010 |
| Daisy Bram | Butte County took a nursing newborn and his toddler brother for four months after their parents' arrest for growing cannabis. | Baby Returned Returned after four months | CA, United States | 2011 |
| Verna Joseph | Security guards restrained a breastfeeding mother at King George Hospital and took her three-week-old daughter in public view, then she was sectioned without being told. | Baby Returned Returned after six days | Ilford, ENG, United Kingdom | 2011 |
| Anastasia Zavgorodnyaya | Finnish social services took a Russian-born mother's four children, including her week-old newborn, after an injury her daughter says happened at school. | Foster Care | Vantaa, Finland | 2012 |
| Lev Tahor Teenage Mother | Police at Calgary airport helped Chatham-Kent children's services apprehend a 17-year-old Lev Tahor mother and her five-month-old daughter under an Ontario order. | Foster Care | Chatham, ON, Canada | 2014 |
| Sarah Markham | A Florida mother lost custody of her newborn son when a doctor sent her to hospital over malnourishment and she did not go straight away; she regained custody five months later. | Returned After Court Action Regained custody after five months | FL, United States | 2014 |
| Stacie Cottle | A Spanish hospital and police seized a British mother's day-old daughter, claiming she was too old to be a newborn, and refused to release her until a DNA test. | Case Ongoing Held pending a DNA test (two weeks at the time of reporting) | Vélez-Málaga, Andalusia, Spain | 2015 |
| Worthing Baby's Mother | A baby was separated from his parents for almost a year after Worthing Hospital staff wrongly concluded he had been shaken; a judge found no-one had harmed him. | Returned After Court Action Returned to mother after almost a year | Worthing, ENG, United Kingdom | 2015 |
| Carla Andrews And Craig Stillwell | A three-month-old with a brain bleed went into emergency foster care for nine months until her parents proved she had Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. | Returned After Court Action | United Kingdom | 2017 |
| Gina Hodgkins | Seven police and two social workers took a six-week-old with birth bruising from his mother; he was later diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. | Baby Returned Returned after five months | ENG, United Kingdom | 2018 |
| Irish Mother (Tusla Emergency Order) | Gardaí and social workers forcibly removed a one-day-old girl from her breastfeeding mother at an Irish maternity hospital under an emergency order made without the mother being heard. | Foster Care | Ireland | 2018 |
| Rebecca Sanders And Justin Johnson | A Miccosukee police officer took two-day-old Ingrid from Baptist Hospital in Kendall while her mother was breastfeeding, using a tribal court order the grandmother obtained. | Returned After Court Action Returned after a tribal court hearing four days later | Kendall, FL, United States | 2018 |
| Hawke's Bay Mother (Son) | Police and Oranga Tamariki tried to uplift a 19-year-old Māori mother's seven-day-old son at Hawke's Bay Hospital under a without-notice order; midwives were locked out, but the uplift was stopped. | Baby Returned Uplift stopped; she kept her son | Hastings, HKB, New Zealand | 2019 |
| Crystal And Jarvis Bryant | A Colorado couple's five-month-old was in foster care for 164 days over alleged broken bones before it emerged he had a bone disorder. | Baby Returned Returned after 164 days | Colorado Springs, CO, United States | 2020 |
| Syesha Mercado | Former American Idol finalist Syesha Mercado's newborn daughter was taken by Florida child protection at a roadside welfare check, months after her son was removed. | Foster Care | Sarasota, FL, United States | 2021 |
| Winnipeg Mother Whose Baby's Removal Was Live-Streamed | Police carried away a two-day-old girl in a car seat at a Winnipeg hospital under a birth alert; the mother had asked social services for help before the birth. | Placed With Kin Guardianship transferred to her aunt; mother cares for her regularly | Winnipeg, MB, Canada | 2022 |
| Sonja And Philip Hathaway | Police met a First Nations mother and Métis father at Victoria General's NICU to say MCFD had taken their premature daughter, despite their release plan. | Foster Care | Victoria, BC, Canada | 2023 |
| Temecia And Rodney Jackson | Police helped CPS take three-day-old Mila from her parents' home after they chose midwife care for jaundice; the affidavit named the wrong mother. | Returned After Court Action Returned after 22 days when DFPS dropped the case | DeSoto, TX, United States | 2023 |
| Laxmi Thapa | A breastfeeding Nepalese mother was arrested and held 20 hours in a police cell, separated from her baby, after hospital staff mistook his blue spot birthmarks for bruises. | Baby Returned Returned after 20 hours; social services found no danger | Basingstoke, ENG, United Kingdom | 2024 |
| Lily Arthur | Jailed in 1967 for being unmarried and pregnant at 17, Lily was shackled to a bed at Brisbane Women's Hospital and her son was taken for adoption; she has taken her fight to the UN. | Adopted | Brisbane, QLD, Australia | 2024 |
| Zita And Ravi | Oranga Tamariki took an Indian couple's baby with 39 fractures in 2018 and the mother was jailed; the family says low calcium and vitamin D were the cause. | Foster Care | New Zealand | 2025 |
| Magdalena (Warsaw) | Police detained a Warsaw mother over unserved community service; four days later her four-month-old son died in foster care, and officials then moved to take her newborn. | Baby Died | Warsaw, Poland | 2026 |
| Mykel And Lakeith Ray | Police bodycam shows officers taking the Rays' newborn son from Mykel's arms in her hospital bed hours after birth, over a six-year-old case. | Foster Care Still fighting to get him back | IL, United States | 2026 |
| Valencia Mother Who Fled | A Valencia mother who had already lost a baby over a cannabis test fled hospital with her newborn to stop social services taking her; police found them 18 days later. | Foster Care Taken into emergency care at under a month old | Valencia, V, Spain | 2026 |