They don’t look too inviting, but these metal boxes could mean the difference between life and death for some newborns. And for the second time in five months, the Safe Haven Baby Box in Michigan City, Indiana, has rescued a local infant.
The box is one of only two of its kind in the state; the original Baby Box is located in Woodburn, IN. The boxes are designed to silently contact 911 when opened, and again when a baby is physically placed inside. The person leaving the baby also has the option of pushing a button to contact emergency personnel. According to The Times of Northwest Indiana, a firefighter arrived at the station one minute after being notified about the infant, who was in good health and taken to the hospital.
“We are excited—another life saved,” Assistant Fire Chief Warren Smith says. “We just have to thank the mother for doing the right thing.”
An expansion of the state’s Safe Haven law, the boxes were introduced in 2016, allowing parents to anonymously surrender unwanted babies. Currently, all 50 states have “safe haven” laws that allow parents to legally leave newborns at locations like hospitals and police stations without risk of persecution, as long as the baby is unharmed. When Indiana Rep. Casey Cox ® introduced his bill for the baby boxes in 2015, he explained they were a “natural progression” of these safe haven laws, which may not offer the level of faceless discretion some parents want. While over 2,800 babies have been safely surrendered since 1999, another 1,400 were illegally abandoned. And only a third of those babies survived.
So how do these boxes work? They’re actually more high-tech than they look. They include heating and cooling pads, along with the previously-mentioned sensors that will let staff know when the box has been opened and weight has been added.
“We’re giving her the power to do what’s right,” says Monica Kelsey, a volunteer firefighter in Woodburn, IN, who founded Safe Haven Baby Boxes Inc. “We’re hoping that these girls know that once they push that button, their baby will be saved.”
Advocates like Kelsey, who was abandoned as an infant herself, say these boxes are intended to be a last resort option for moms—turning a baby over to a professional, in person, is preferred—but it’s still the best alternative to prevent illegal child abandonment.
“We want these locations to be able to accept a child if somebody thinks this is the only thing they can do,” she says.
Not everyone agrees it’s a great idea, citing the possibility that it makes abandoning a child too easy without exploring other options, or receiving proper medical care. The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child has actually called for a ban on baby boxes in Europe. But countries like China and South Korea are using—possibly overusing —their versions of the boxes.
H/T Associated Press
Navigate forward to interact with the calendar and select a date. Press the question mark key to get the keyboard shortcuts for changing dates.
