Ireland: the Mother and Baby Homes Commission establishes 923 child deaths at Bessborough, with three of every four infants dying in 1943

Proceedings

1. 2021-01-12 · final report published

   Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes, Ireland (statutory commission established under the Commissions of Investigation Act 2004). In its final report the Commission established that 923 children born in or associated with Bessborough — the mother and baby home owned and run by the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary at Blackrock, Cork, from 1922 to 1998 — died in infancy or early childhood, confirming 99% of those deaths against General Register Office records. Almost 11% of all the child deaths across the home's 76-year operation occurred in 1943 alone, when infant mortality peaked at 75.19%: in the Commission's own words, 'for every 100 babies born in, or admitted to, Bessborough that year, 75 subsequently died in infancy'. Among infants born to private patients the 1943 rate reached 80%. Mortality fell to just over 12% by 1946 and to around 2% from 1961 until the home closed. The Commission also recorded 31 maternal deaths associated with the institution, finding General Register Office records for 29 of them but burial records for only 12.

Documented coercion mechanisms

• an institution to which unmarried mothers were sent because of the religious and social opprobrium attached to birth outside marriage
• custody of mothers and their infants held by a religious congregation over seven decades
• the congregation's failure to keep burial records for the children who died in its care