Infant Surrendered at Safe Haven Baby Box in Kentucky Less Than 2 Months After It Was Installed
Grace Ramey/Daily News via AP The Bowling Green Fire Department's Safe Haven Baby Box at BGFD's Fire Station #7
In a first for Kentucky, an infant was recently dropped off at a Safe Haven Baby Box.
At a news conference on Friday, Safe Haven Baby Boxes founder and CEO Monica Kelsey said the baby, who is healthy, was anonymously dropped off within the past week at a fire station in Bowling Green, according to CNN and the Associated Press.
The baby box has only been in operation for less than two months after having been installed in December, per NBC and CBS affiliate WNKY.
"This baby is healthy, this baby is beautiful, this baby is perfect, and the Department of Child Services is now looking for a forever home," Kelsey said at the news conference, per the outlets.
The child was pulled from the climate-controlled box about 90 seconds after being surrendered, according to Kelsey.
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Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear signed a law in 2021 allowing children under 30 days old to be anonymously surrendered at a "newborn safety device", according to CNN. The law stipulates that all police stations, fire stations, or hospitals chosen as locations for the baby boxes are staffed around the clock.
To date, there are 16 baby box locations across the state, per the AP.
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Michael Conroy/AP/Shutterstock Monica Kelsey poses with baby box prototype outside Indiana fire station in 2015
The boxes come with temperature controls and a silent alarm that alerts firefighters to a baby's presence in the box 60 seconds after a newborn is dropped off.
Additionally, an exterior door automatically locks once the baby is put inside, and an interior door allows the baby to be retrieved from inside the building where the box was installed.
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Republican state Sen. Nancy Tate, who spearheaded the bill's unanimous passage, told WNKY that she hopes to expand the program in Kentucky.
"It's great to have 16 boxes here in Kentucky," she told the outlet. "There are 120 counties. My goal is to have at least one box in every county and I don't see any reason why we can't do that."
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The National Safe Haven Alliance says 33 infants were illegally abandoned and 115 were saved in the U.S. in 2021. But the program does have its critics, with some noting how few babies are surrendered each year.
Additionally, the organization has referred over 500 women to crisis pregnancy centers, which are heavily criticized for providing misleading and inaccurate information regarding sexual and reproductive health, according to the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine and the North American Society for Pediatric and Adolescent Gynecology.
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There are currently over 130 Safe Haven Baby Boxes in nine states, according to the AP.
The baby in Kentucky is the 24th to be surrendered across the country, Kelsey said at the news conference last week, per the news agency.
"This child was legally, safely, anonymously and lovingly placed inside of this Safe Haven Baby Box," Kelsey said, "and that speaks volumes about the parent,"
