Baby Box at South Bend Fire Department, helps prevent child abandonment

SOUTH BEND — The city got its first “baby box” — a device parents in crisis can put their newborn babies into — Thursday at Fire Station 11 on Bendix Avenue.

The move comes after a failed attempt to bring one to the area in 2016 and new legislation that holds parents harmless for putting newborns back in boxes at fire departments.

The box is designed to prevent infant abandonment as it provides parents who feel they cannot care for their newborn a safe place to hand over the baby anonymously.

The box is recessed into an exterior wall of the fire station and has both heating and cooling elements, depending on the outside temperature. When a baby is placed in the device, a silent alarm is triggered, notifying emergency responders.

“It’s a last resort for moms. We want them to choose a parenting plan; we want them to choose adoption,” said Monica Kelsey, firefighter and physician, and founder of Safe Haven Baby Boxes, based in Woodburn, Indiana.

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The box is the first of its kind in St. Joseph County and comes after a previous attempt by Kelsey to install one at the Life Center at Ironwood Circle in 2016 stalled after opposition from the US Health Department. Indiana State.

Indiana child welfare and health experts have argued against the boxes, saying people should only drop babies directly to care providers.

The Indiana Department of Children’s Services balked at the lack of regulated standards for box design and construction, and uncertainty about how quickly someone would retrieve a baby left in one.

Recent legislation, however, shields mothers who put babies into “newborn safety devices” attached to hospitals and fire stations from criminal prosecution.

Setting up a baby box in South Bend has been on Kelsey’s radar since talks broke down in 2016. She pointed to the size of the town, as well as the 2013 feticide conviction of Purvi Patel, a Granger woman who left her child dead in a dumpster behind a Mishawaka restaurant, as reasons why the region needs it.

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Kelsey was joined Thursday by city officials and members of the Knights of Columbus to autograph the box.

“We’ve seen how young girls who don’t know what to do with their babies put them in bins and leave them on the side of the roads and in front of people’s doorsteps,” said Common Council member Canneth Lee. “Now it will be a positive space where these babies have a place to go.”

The cost of the new box is covered by fundraising with the Knights of Columbus. The organization donated $10,000 for the newly installed box in South Bend and raised another $10,000 for a box to be installed in Mishawaka in the near future, group member Tim McBride said.

South Bend Fire Chief Carl Buchanon said the location of the box on the north side of town was intended to provide greater anonymity for those who abandon a child.

Safe Haven has installed nearly 100 baby boxes, mostly in Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio, and 12 newborn babies have been delivered there in Indiana over the past three years, Kelsey said. The non-profit group also has a helpline for parents in crisis and is active on social media on preventing adoption and abandonment.

Thursday’s dedication comes after years of debate over baby boxes and several rounds of legislation. Like many states, Indiana has a safe haven law that gives parents who anonymously surrender their newborn to an emergency medical service provider, such as a firefighter, police officer, or doctor, protection from criminal prosecution, provided that the child is not over 30 years old. days old.

It wasn’t until 2017 that lawmakers voted to protect parents who abandoned their newborns in baby boxes attached to hospitals.

The law was changed in 2018 to allow baby boxes at fire stations 24 hours a day and again in 2021 to include volunteer firefighters within one mile of a hospital.

For Kelsey, the Safe Haven project hits close to home as she was abandoned by her 17-year-old mother at a small eastern Ohio hospital in 1972. She often hears concerns that the boxes encourage women to abandon their children instead of considering adoption, but said these fears do not explain what women who consider giving up their babies go through.

“If you don’t have that for these mothers, you’re going to continue to find babies in dumpsters across the country,” Kelsey said.

Email Marek Mazurek at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter: @marek_mazurek