Infants offered a Safe Haven:
Babies Saved Through Program Offered in Indiana, Elsewhere
Molly McDonough, almost 2 years old, touched the tiny angel decoration atop Baby John Doe's gravestone. Molly, who lives in Massapequa, N.Y., had no idea of the significance of her visit to Lindenwood Cemetery in Fort Wayne. But her adopted mother, Carolyn McDonough, knew all too well.
If not for New York's Baby Safe Haven program, Molly would likely have met the same fate as Baby John Doe, who was found dead March 14, 2002, in an alley in the 4600 block of Calumet Avenue, after his mother abandoned him. An autopsy revealed the full-term baby boy bled to death less than 24 hours after his birth. Like Baby John Doe, Molly was given up - but not before her birth mother contacted Baby Safe Haven, a program that allows mothers to leave newborns with a hospital or emergency-services provider without fear of prosecution.
Molly and her mother, along with AMT Children of Hope founder Tim Jaccard, are traveling around the country to increase awareness about the issue and the available program. Their stop in Fort Wayne was part of a formal news conference today.
"There are so many people who want children," McDonough said. "It just doesn't seem real when I look at (Baby John Doe's) grave. It's tragic. It's not like babies in this country have to wait in an orphanage."
Every year, an estimated 150 to 200 newborns in the United States are abandoned and die before someone finds them, according to the AMT Children of Hope Foundation's Baby Safe Haven. It is part of a national network of programs and hot lines working to prevent needless deaths of abandoned newborns.
Molly was born Sept. 9, 2001, in New York City's Central Park. Months before, Molly's birth mother had picked up information from Jaccard during a health fair. Just one piece of information - a phone number to call - changed the world for a little girl and her family.
"It was 3 a.m., and I was working my shift at the station," said Jaccard, then a medic with the Nassau County, N.Y., police department.
He received an emergency page from the mother, who described where in the park she was having her baby. Jaccard and another officer arrived to help deliver Molly.
Molly was taken to a hospital. The birth mother refused medical attention, but Jaccard saw that she had at least a 24-hour stay in a hotel. "She was gone by the second day," he said.
Molly was adopted by McDonough when she was 5 days old. "It would have been sooner but Sept. 11 happened," McDonough remembered. The birth mother has made no contact since.
Although 43 states, including Indiana, now have Safe Haven laws, too few pregnant mothers know about them, Jaccard said.
Indiana's law passed in March 2000. Yet mothers here continue to abandon newborns who most of the time die.
In October, Beatriz Cuault, 28, of Warsaw, gave birth while working at Kralis Brothers Foods in Mentone. A co-worker found the baby in a restroom trash can inside the plant and called 911. When emergency personnel arrived, the infant was dead. In June, Cuault, a native of Mexico, pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and is serving a 10-year prison sentence.
A year ago, 18-year-old Savanah Pyles, 18, of Delaware County, delivered a premature infant in her bathtub at home. While she didn't abandon the baby, she left it face down in the water, allowing it to die, because she was "afraid it might die anyway from injuries it suffered during childbirth," she told authorities.
"We believe there are three babies abandoned for every one we hear about," said Kathy Satow, founder and CEO of Newborn Lifeline Network, an Indiana-based program that runs a national crisis line for mothers thinking about abandoning their babies.
Her organization also is working to publicize that there are options for expectant mothers who think they have none. Although Newborn Lifeline has handled 600 crisis calls from 30 states, only 15 within the past year came from Indiana.
In June, Newborn Lifeline and sister organization Reaching Parents in Crisis began a campaign of public service announcements in southern Indiana and northern Kentucky. Since then, 45 calls have come into the crisis line from Indiana, and calls from Kentucky more than doubled in one month.
In New York's and Indiana's Safe Haven programs, the crisis lines don't provide service, but serve as referral sources. Callers, who don't have to give their names or other personal information, can be connected to adoption attorneys and crisis pregnancy centers.
"Most callers are very early in pregnancy and trying to make a plan, or in late pregnancy and trying to make a plan," Satow said.
For some, giving birth is imminent - or closer.
"I've had callers from restaurant restrooms: 'I'm delivering a baby. What do I do?' or 'I'm in my bedroom. Mom and dad are in the other room, and I'm in labor. What do I do?' " Satow said.
Molly is living proof of what the Safe Haven law can do, Jaccard said. Last year, Baby Safe Haven fielded 2,510 calls, most from a tri-state area around New York City. "It was the first time in 11 years (in New York) we had no neonatalcide," when mothers knowingly abandon newborns who later die. It's a goal McDonough has for every state. "Just look at Molly. To think she wouldn't be here . . ."
NEWS-SENTINEL - JENNIFER L. BOEN
Safe Haven for Newborns - Indiana's Safe Haven law, passed in March 2000, allows mothers of infants up to 45 days old to leave them in the hands of emergency medical service providers and hospitals without fear of prosecution.
To contact the Indiana-based Newborn Lifeline Network, call toll-free at 1-866-694-2229, or visit www.newbornlifeline.org on the Web.
To contact New York-based Baby Safe Haven, call toll-free at 1-877-796-HOPE, or 1-877-796-4673. You can also visit www.amtchildrenofhope.com on the Web.