Bloody Foster Mothers

Foster placement abuse cases in the first half of the 19th century

Abstract

Fearing the shame of illegitimate pregnancy and birth, Carniolan women often preferred to give birth in the remote city of Trieste rather than in nearby Ljubljana. They often left their newborn child there. Foundling homes placed these children with families in the countryside in exchange for remuneration. Foster families usually gladly accepted these children because they provided a stable annual source of income. However, the institution of remuneration was often abused when the foster child died and its foster parents kept receiving foster care payment. The records of the Provincial Court in Ljubljana contain case files from 1817–1823 that deal with such scapegraces. An extensive investigation focused on many cases of murder because foster children often died not long after they were placed in the family, after which their foster mothers showed other children to the foster care committee and kept receiving remuneration. However, such parents were sentenced and penalized only for fraud. Married parents sometimes performed a particularly dirty kind of profit-making because they first left their own children in a foundling home and then signed a contract to become their foster parents. It is interesting that the provincial court saw this not as fraud but as a matter of civil law.