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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 ↕ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ivana Brønlund | Municipal authorities took 18-year-old Greenlandic mother Ivana Brønlund's daughter one hour after birth; a national appeals board reversed the decision six weeks later. | Returned After Court Action Appeals board reversed the removal on 22 September 2025 | Capital Region, Denmark | 2025 |
| Mother Before Judge Mary Lou Alvarez | A Bexar County judge ordered a four-day-old baby taken from his mother at a paternity hearing and held at the courthouse before CPS was even notified. | Baby Returned Returned to the mother on 21 October | San Antonio, TX, United States | 2025 |
| Hawke's Bay Mother (Daughter) | Oranga Tamariki took a young Māori mother's first baby, a daughter, in 2018; after a long battle she brought her home in 2024. | Baby Returned Home after about six years with non-whānau carers | Hastings, HKB, New Zealand | 2024 |
| 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 |
| Chanetto Rivers | New York's ACS separated Chanetto from her newborn son for his first week over a cannabis test taken without consent, when cannabis was legal; the city settled. | Returned After Court Action Reunited by a judge; city paid $75,000 plus fees | Bronx, NY, United States | 2023 |
| Rebecca Hernandez | Alabama DHR took Rebecca's healthy newborn son four hours after birth because of a positive opiate test, which turned out to be poppy seed bread. | Baby Returned Reunited after the test was shown to be a false positive | Huntsville, AL, United States | 2020 |
| Teenage Mother With An Intellectual Disability | NSW DCJ planned months before the birth to take a teenage mother's son at birth and stop her breastfeeding; the Children's Court threw the case out. | Returned After Court Action Back with his mother within days | NSW, Australia | 2020 |
| 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 |
| Sarah-Jane Poole | A British mother fled to France to stop her son being taken at birth because of teenage depression; French social services found she posed no risk. | Baby Returned Kept her son after fleeing to France; removal avoided | ENG, United Kingdom | 2019 |
| Huu-Ay-Aht Mother | MCFD took a Huu-ay-aht mother's daughter three days after birth; a judge ordered the baby returned two months later to live with her mother in a Nation-supported home. | Returned After Court Action Returned after almost two months, to a Nation-supported home | Port Alberni, BC, Canada | 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 |
| Irvine Mum | North Ayrshire social workers took a mother's son three hours after a caesarean; a sheriff later found the social worker 'disliked' her and the evidence was plainly wrong. | Returned After Court Action Returned after seven months | Irvine, SCT, United Kingdom | 2015 |
| North Ayrshire Mother | Social workers took a baby three hours after his caesarean birth; a sheriff overturned the order, finding the evidence 'unsubstantiated' and possibly 'fabrication'. | Returned After Court Action | SCT, United Kingdom | 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 |
| Annie Bertram | North Tyneside social workers took Annie's six-day-old son Huw into foster care with a plan for adoption; she fought and he came home at nearly nine months old. | Returned After Court Action Came home at nearly nine months old | North Tyneside, ENG, United Kingdom | 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 |
| Tiffany Langwell | Hospital staff called Riverside County CPS when Tiffany left hospital against advice the day she gave birth; her baby was taken the next day and returned a week later after clean drug tests. | Baby Returned Returned after a week | Riverside, CA, United States | 2014 |
| Tonita Rogers | A Riverside County social worker took a three-day-old baby from her mother's breast in a hospital room without a warrant, only because her siblings were already in care. | Baby Returned Returned 5 to 10 days later | Riverside, CA, United States | 2014 |
| Cora | Cora believes a birth alert led an Alberta social worker to serve an apprehension order at Rockyview General Hospital four days after her son was born. | Baby Returned | Calgary, AB, Canada | 2013 |
| Neecha Dupuis | A nurse at The Ottawa Hospital warned that CAS would take Neecha's baby if he tested positive for cannabis; at discharge she was told she couldn't leave because CAS had 'red-flagged' her. | Baby Returned Kept her baby after an advocate intervened | Ottawa, ON, Canada | 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 |
| Kathleen Rogers | Social workers and security took Kathleen's three-day-old son while she was breastfeeding at Winnipeg's Health Sciences Centre; the agency later admitted she posed no threat. | Returned After Court Action Regained custody after three months in court | Winnipeg, MB, Canada | 2010 |