Confidential birth

A confidential birth is a birth where the mother gives birth to a child without her identity being disclosed by the authorities. In many countries, confidential births have been legalized for centuries in order to prevent formerly frequent killings of newborn children, particularly outside of marriage.

In a confidential birth, the mother's right of informational self-determination suspends the children's right to know about their biological ancestry until she changes her mind or until the grown up child requests disclosure at a later point. The alternative concept of an anonymous birth, where the mother doesn't disclose her identity to the authorities at all or where her identity remains infinitely undisclosed, goes beyond this.

History

An early forerunner of confidential birth legislation can be found in Sweden where the Infanticide Act of 1778 granted mothers both the right and all means to give birth to their child anonymously. the act's 1856 amendment however restricted this legislation to confidential births, where the midwife was ordered to keep the mother's name in a sealed envelope.

In France, confidential births were legalized in 1793, when Article 326 of the Code Civil introduced both the concepts of anonymous and confidential births.

United States

Sealed records law was installed in 1917, allowing both parties to benefit from the confidentiality, mainly the state and whoever else involved. Birth certificates are sealed for those adopted so that the adoptive parents feel autonomy from the biological parents and receive the privacy that birth parents have. The sealed records law lets anyone adopted to create own fate without influence from biological parents and their origins.

See also

• Anonymous birth
• Baby hatch
• Adoption disclosure

References

1. Wegar, Katarina (1997). Adoption, Identity, and Kinship: The Debate over Sealed Birth Records. New Haven: Yale University Press. pp. 82-85.