Wigan mum accused of ‘neglect’ after leaving newborn baby with her grandma overnight

A young mum from Wigan has been accused of ‘neglect’ after leaving her five-week-old daughter with her grandparent overnight.

Zoe Wallace, twenty-five, from Leigh, Wigan, has hit back at her critics who attacked her when she admitted to leaving her daughter, Parker, who is now four-months-old, with her grandparent the night before she fell seriously ill with RSV – a viral illness that can lead to severe bronchiolitis and pneumonia in young babies.

Zoe, who documents life as a new mum on her TikTok page, took to the platform to detail her daughter’s recovery, which involved her being moved from A&E to a high dependency unit where she was then put on a machine to do the breathing for her.

Parker was later given antibiotics and has thankfully made a full recovery. However, many TikTok users struggled to sympathise with Zoe’s ordeal, with some accusing her of neglecting her daughter by leaving her with a grandparent the night before she fell ill despite it only being a ten minute drive away.

Zoe Marie Wallace / Facebook

One user wrote, “5 weeks old, she should not be leaving your side”, while another commented, “5 weeks? Oh no mama!!! She needs her momma.”

Well, Zoe has since posted a video hitting back at the ‘hurtful comments’, telling the Manchester Evening News that she had only posted the video to share her daughter’s story and to raise awareness about RSV.

She said: “It made her very poorly and I was unaware how serious it could be in newborns. I hadn’t even heard about it until she was poorly and I wanted to make other mums aware of the signs.

“I had mentioned that she stayed with my mum the night before falling ill to show how quickly she declined but it wasn’t taken that way. People in the comments have branded me a bad mum because of my decision to allow my mum to have my child over night.

“To me, personally, it’s pretty normal for new mums to get support in anyway from family members but I didn’t know it would be so controversial online. I do regret mentioning her staying at my mum’s because of the hate I have received, but I don’t regret sharing my daughter’s story, because it could help save another child’s life.”

She described some of the worst abuse she received, noting that the most hurtful were that she’d been neglecting her children, she’s a bad parent, that she doesn’t deserve to have children and even that her daughter deserved to die, because then ‘she wouldn’t have bad parents’.

She said: “The main hate I received was along the lines of ‘how could you leave your baby’? It just shocked me how it’s encouraged as a new mum to accept help from people you trust, because it can be overwhelming, but as soon as you do it’s seen as neglectful.

“I think the video going viral has proven the double standards for mums, there’s a lot of mum shaming and I don’t think it’s fair.”

Zoe added that, despite the backlash, she will continue sharing her parenting stories on TikTok, saying: “My kids are fine and my kids are happy. They love spending time with my mum and what other people think is not going to change that, or change what I’m posting either.”