A newborn was surrendered to a Safe Haven baby box in Indiana, making the baby the seventh to be surrendered in the state and the sixteenth across the country this year.
“The infant is checked by medics and then taken to the hospital for further evaluation. She will likely be adopted by a family within 30 to 45 days,” WBTV reported on Nov. 17.
Safe Haven Baby Boxes were created to deter parents from abandoning their newborns, potentially leaving them to die. Baby boxes are temperature-controlled incubators that are often built into outside exterior walls of fire stations, police stations, and hospitals and can be accessed from inside. At-risk mothers can safely and legally place their babies inside, often up to 90 days old. Then, the outside door locks, and mothers have time to get away before an alarm goes off alerting first responders or hospital staff inside.
The baby is then quickly removed and sent to a hospital for a wellness check. From there the baby is usually placed into state custody and often quickly adopted.
Safe Haven Baby Box founder Monica Kelsey told the outlet she is grateful to the child’s mother “for bravely and sacrificially choosing what she believes to be the best for her baby.”
“We are honored that she trusted our program to protect her and her infant,” Kelsey said. “There is a real beauty in seeing the families made with these babies adopted by amazing families. It is a real chance to rewrite tragedy into a blessing.”
Anyone interested in finding a Safe Haven location or speaking to a licensed counselor may call the National Safe Haven crisis hotline at 1-866-99BABY1.
Monica Kelsey, firefighter and medic who is president of Safe Haven Baby Boxes Inc., poses with a prototype of a baby box, where parents can surrender their newborns anonymously, outside her fire station on Feb. 26, 2015, in Woodburn, Indiana. Kentucky has seen its first infant anonymously dropped off at one of its “baby box” safe surrender locations, Kelsey said at a news conference Friday, February 10, 2023. (Michael Conroy, File/AP)
Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on X @thekat_hamilton.
