Their testimonies are rare or even non-existent. ” They are ashamed, they are afraid “, summarizes Valérie Boulanger, former head of the information and listening service SOS baby. Every year in France, a few hundred women resort to surrogate childbirth. This practice, authorized in very rare countries like ours, allows them to give birth to their child without having to give their identity. They then entrust them to adoption services and disappear without a trace.
” If they request anonymity, it is for a reason: they never want to be found “, insists Maele Le Goff, midwifery coordinator at Nantes University Hospital. Called “shadow mothers”, these women hide to avoid opprobrium and rejection. Confined in almost total secrecy, they alone carry the guilt of an act that is nevertheless legal and proposed by social and hospital services. Very often, even the very close entourage is not aware “, adds Maele Le Goff.
Fewer and fewer births
In 2022, there were 209 of them who made this choice, according to the latest activity report from the CNAOP – the National Council for Access to Personal Origins – in charge of collecting the files of children born under the only clue that can slightly shed light on this reality. Neither the national institute for demographic studies (INED) nor INSEE have been able to provide more recent, more complete, more detailed statistics.
One certainty nevertheless emerges from this fog: they are less and less numerous. Between 600 and 700 babies were collected in the 2010s compared to around 200 today. A decline that is attributed to the democratization of abortion and contraception, the decline in the birth rate and the development of state aid for mothers in distress.
One observation also comes up regularly: “ There is no typical profile, each case is particular “, assures Chantal Prononce-Poyol, psychologist for Seine-Saint-Denis Child Welfare. The therapist is exclusively dedicated to the care of these women who are referred to her by local PMIs, family planning or maternity wards. I must have met nearly 400 of them, all at more or less advanced stages of their pregnancies “, she says.
His clinical experience has proven to him that the prejudices about these women (minors, denial of pregnancy, fear of parents) are far from reflecting reality. ” There are some in these cases but it is clearly not the majority “, continues the psychologist. In Seine-Saint-Denis, Sandrine Servières, midwife at the PMI, confirms: ” The latest one, for example, must have been around thirty years old, she came to see me to take birth preparation courses. “, she says. ” She seemed very mature, was able to verbalize very well why she didn’t see herself being a mother, in fact after giving birth she made an appointment to be ligate the tubes “, remembers the midwife.
At the Nantes University Hospital, Maele Le Goff-Gautier accompanied a married woman, already the mother of two children. ” She arrived around 11 p.m., gave birth, gave us the child and around 5 a.m. told us that she had to leave because she absolutely had to take her children to school. And her husband never knew anything about it “, reveals the midwife. In Gironde, Véronique Porres, head of the adoption office, followed the process…of a couple: ” They had made their decision together, they just didn’t see themselves being parents “.
Married, single, student, unemployed, executive, lawyer or professor, already a mother, a minor or over forty… The woman who entrusts her child looks like everyone else.
The impossible why
” We always wonder why, what resists to the point of pushing them to separate from their children? “, admits Maele Le Goff-Gautier. In these women, the motivations are multiple, complex, conscious and unconscious. ” Because no one abandons their child out of joy. “, insists Maele Le Goff-Gautier. In a survey carried out between 2007 and 2009, INED researchers met more than 600 women giving birth under X. To explain their choice, 43% of them mentioned a tumultuous relationship with the father of birth (separation; refusal to become a father; domestic violence) and 28% spoke of their very precarious living conditions.
According to the authors of the study, if these reasons are part of their final decisions, they are not the only ones to explain childbirth under Women give priority to the reasons that seem easiest to them to express and why they will not feel judged or guilty “, they elaborate. An opinion shared by psychologist Chantal Prononce-Poyol. According to her, financial or social contingencies are only the tip of the iceberg. Especially since in Seine-Saint-Denis, the department provides these women with a range of support solutions: apartment if it is necessary to move away from those around them, psychological and financial support… ” If there are really only external reasons at play, we give them solutions “, indicates the psychologist.
The therapist, on the other hand, noticed that the loneliness and lack of support of these women was ” glaring because it is almost systematic. They have to take responsibility for everything on their own, men are very absent “, she emphasizes. ” They always tell us that they are alone and isolated “, adds Véronique Porres.
Psychic mechanisms at play
Their common point would ultimately be found on the side of the psyche. ” They almost all have trans-generational traumatic stories and family secrets linked to filiation and sexuality, which are reactivated by this symptomatic pregnancy. “, observes Chantal Prononce-Poyol. It is in these traumas that the knot could be found, the supreme reason which prevents them from projecting themselves into this parenthood. Some have sometimes suffered the abandonment or absence of their parents, of violence, mistreatment and abuse, stifling families, unsaid things, secrets, taboos.
” My last patient, for example, had suffered abuse from her mother. I ended up understanding it between the lines, even if my patient didn’t describe them as such. She even had a very close relationship with this abusive mother. She also gave her mother’s first name to her baby. I think it was this totally dysfunctional relationship with his own mother that prevented him from becoming one. “, supposes the midwife.
During pregnancy, women are undoubtedly vulnerable. ” The hormonal, psychological upheaval, all these changes in the body and in the mind “, explains Maele Le Goff-Gautier. This very delicate period favors the reappearance of buried trauma. ” When you become pregnant, you very often relive your own childhood story. “, confirms Chantal Prononce-Poyol. For these women, the psychological mechanisms in action are so violent that it makes it impossible to become a mother. ” They know it, they talk about blockages, inconceivable motherhood, they say it’s too much for them “, testifies Valérie Boulanger of SOS Bébé.
A form of love for their children
” By entrusting their children, they protect them from their own stories, their families, their traumas “, continues Chantal Prononce-Poyol. ” It is an act of deep love, imagine the strength it takes to separate from a child because we feel that he will be better off somewhere else than with us “, continues Maele Le Goff-Gautier. The majority of people around them are unanimous: it is not an abandonment but a gift of a child. And the love that these women have for their children is undeniable.
On the contrary. The majority of them express genuine concern for the baby. ” They come back to ask us if he is well, if he has found a family, if he seems happy “, explains Véronique Porres. ” Just because they can’t raise them doesn’t mean they don’t think about it “, adds Maele Le Goff-Gautier. The lack of love is not towards their baby but towards themselves.
This choice they made, they carry with them all their lives. ” Three quarters of women feel very guilty and show a lack “, says Valérie Boulanger. ” They will never forget “, bounces back Maele Le Goff.