Fears for health of pregnant woman detained on islandYuko Narushima
May 12, 2009
A PREGNANT woman is among 454 people detained on Christmas Island and medical professionals warn of potential health repercussions for the mother and child.

The island in the Indian Ocean is now home to at least 45 children aged one to 17. Another 31 asylum seekers intercepted on a boat north of Darwin yesterday are on their way.

Two detained mothers have given birth since the Rudd Government came to power.

The first woman was in a prison-style detention centre while the second was in community detention.

The woman pregnant on Christmas Island is in community detention, a spokesman for the Immigration Department said.

But to make the distinction was an exercise in semantics with little bearing on the isolation of pregnant detainees, the Professor of Developmental Psychiatry at Monash University, Louise Newman, said.

"In no way should someone who is pregnant be in such a remote location," she said.

Research into the impact of detention found that it diminished the adult's capacity to parent, she said.

The departmental spokesman stressed women did not give birth in a detention facility. Asylum seekers who claimed to be pregnant were first tested, then flown to the mainland for medical checks at 34 weeks.

Babies were delivered in hospital and taken into detention when the mother was deemed medically fit to return, he said.

However, a clinical psychologist from the University of NSW, Zachary Steel, said it was the loss of control that led to mental deterioration in detainees. Compounding that for children was witnessing adult distress, Dr Steel said.

In July last year the Minister for Immigration, Chris Evans, said detention was a last resort and reiterated a 2005 pledge to keep children out of maximum security detention centres.

Yesterday, border control intercepted a boat with 31 male asylum seekers believed to be from Afghanistan. The boat, the 12th intercepted this year, was 23 nautical miles north of the Tiwi Islands.