Covenant Hospital Levelland has installed a Safe Haven Baby Box at their facility.
Safe Haven Baby Boxes mission is to prevent illegal abandonment of newborns by raising awareness, offering a 24hour hotline for mothers in crisis and offering the Safe Haven Baby Boxes as a last resort option for women who want to maintain complete anonymity.
The 'Baby Moses Law' in Texas, officially known as the Safe Haven Law, allows parents to anonymously surrender their unharmed newborns, no older than 60 days, to designated emergency infant care providers without fear of prosecution for abandonment or neglect. These providers include hospitals, fire stations, and EMS stations, where the baby can be safely handed over to an employee. The law's purpose is to provide a safe alternative for parents who feel they cannot care for their newborn, encouraging them to choose this option over abandoning the child in a dangerous location.
When the box is assembled it comes with a set of alarms to notify the receiving party that there is activity at the box. This includes an alarm when the box door is open from the exterior of the building, an alarm when a laser going across the middle of the box is interrupted (ex. laying the baby in the box) and when the door is closed. These alarms notify the nurse’s station. Director of Operations, Norma Rubalcava explained that each alarm notifies the station with blinking lights and a beeping noise. Additionally, all staff have been trained for each step in the process of receiving the baby.
“Our policy states that once the box is open and the first alarm is activated, we will go check the box regardless to make sure a baby is in there or no,” said Rubalcava. “Wanting to provide that anonymity for the mother, we have placed the box in the north wall of the hospital [facing the south clinic] with cameras adjusted to not cover that particular area.”
Within the box is also a bag for the mother dropping off the baby with ‘please take’ labeled which includes information about that mothers’ rights and support or help options.
If a baby is placed in the box, the infant is immediately taken to the ER in the hospital to have an assessment done as an anonymous baby. Following the assessment, if the baby is healthy Child Protective Services (CPS) will be contacted, and their process will begin. Rubalcava did note that if the child is healthy upon drop-off, there is a possibility for the parent to go through the CPS process and regain custody.
If the child appears injured or unhealthy, the hospital will contact local law enforcement to begin tracking the mother as well as contacting CPS. Rubalcava explained that at that point the drop off becomes a crime. From there the child would be transferred to Covenant Children’s Hospital for any necessary treatment and the CPS case would be transferred to the Lubbock County offices.
“We hope we never have to see an infant, but we would rather have this alternative than the stories we hear on the news about infants be left in dumpsters and trash cans,” explained Rubalcava.
In Albuquerque, a newborn was found deceased inside of a dumpster on April 22. The deceased newborn was found wrapped inside of a blanket.
Instances of this type of situation have prompted many hospitals or fire stations to install the baby boxes. Rubalcava added that recent statistics and trainings have revealed those particular instances have been on the rise.
“This is a way to tell our community that we have a place for those who are not sure or not ready,” said Rubalcava.