BABY BOXES PROVIDE SAFE HEAVEN FOR ABANDONED NEWBORNS

There are now two functional “baby boxes” in Indiana, designed to ensure a safe place for newborns who otherwise stand no chance. The Safe Haven Baby Boxes Organization was founded by Monica Kelsey, of Woodburn, Indiana. Kelsey was abandoned as a child in 1973 at an Ohio hospital by her teenage mother. She is now on a national crusade to spare moms and babies the painful and sometimes fatal decision to leave or abandon a newborn on church steps, in trash bins or, other location. As soon as the box, typically built into the exterior wall of a firehouse or hospital, is opened and a baby placed inside, a 911 alert is sent. Inside the box, the baby is protected in a climate-controlled, padded and locked container until help arrives. Motions detectors trigger a second call to 911, and paramedics arrive within minutes to take the baby to a hospital. Mothers are given an option to press a button that would ensure a third emergency call. The first box was installed at the firehouse where Kelsey works in Woodburn on April 19, exactly 43 years to the minute after Kelsey was left at a hospital in the tiny Ohio town of Montpelier. A second box is in Michigan City. On the outside, the safe looks somewhat similar to a library book depository, with a written notice in English and Spanish identifying it as a designated Safe Haven Surrender Site under Indiana state law, therefore exempting mothers from any criminal prosecution.