“I carry what’s known as pre‑verbal trauma, a wound that settled into my body and nervous system.” From the 1940s to the 1970s, known as the “baby scoop era,” millions of young mothers were pressured, shamed and outright forced into surrendering their newborns. Fearing the disgrace of an “illegitimate” pregnancy, families sent their daughters to maternity homes, run largely by religious groups, where social workers and moral authorities insisted that closed adoption was the path to cleansing