'This is not a pro-life, pro-choice issue': Safe haven baby boxes for surrendered babies

Metal boxes throughout the United States reside within the walls of fire stations, police stations and hospitals. To the untrained eye, the boxes may seem like ordinary objects, but for desperate parents, they aim to be beacons of hope — a safe haven for their babies.

In June 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, sparking both opposition and praise in Mississippi — where the successful abortion rights challenge first started. Since Roe was overturned, safe haven baby boxes have been gaining popularity in the state and are often backed by state officials.

A Safe Haven Baby Box is a temperature-controlled padded device that allows mothers to safely and anonymously surrender their newborns. The concept was driven by the number of babies abandoned in unsafe conditions, with some of them dying as a result.

According to the National Safe Haven Alliance, a non-profit organization dedicated to infant abandonment prevention, more than 1,600 babies were illegally abandoned throughout the nation since 1999; nearly 60% of those babies were found deceased.

In the past three years, media outlets have reported at least three cases of newborns being abandoned unsafely in Mississippi. No national database of infant abandonments exists, and many states, including Mississippi, do not track those numbers.

In 2024, a newborn girl was found abandoned behind dumpsters at a mobile home park in Marshall County. In 2022, at least two reports were made of newborns being abandoned, a newborn found abandoned and dead on a porch in Southaven, and a baby boy was abandoned in the woods in Macon.

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In a movement to ensure the safe placement of surrendered babies while also protecting the privacy of mothers, Monica Kelsey founded Safe Haven Baby Boxes Inc. in 2015. The organization is not connected to the aforementioned National Safe Haven Alliance.

Kelsey, who grew up in an adopted family in Ohio and learned in adulthood about her own abandonment as an infant, has been pursuing her life's mission to provide an anonymous surrender option for "mothers in crisis."

“I stand on the front lines of this movement as one of these kids that wasn't safely, legally and anonymously placed in a Safe Haven Baby Box by a parent that wanted me," Kelsey said. "I fight every day for women and children in this country to make sure that their lives turn out different than what mine did at the beginning. This is my legacy, and I will forever be their voice.”

Despite perceived conservative ties to the anti-abortion movement, Kelsey said the Safe Haven Baby Box movement is not about abortion.

“This is bipartisan,” Kelsey said. "This is not a pro-life issue. This is not a pro-choice issue. These babies are born. And I think all of us would agree that a baby being left in the dumpster for 6 hours versus a baby being left in a baby box for 3 minutes wouldn't be best.”

What are Safe Haven Baby Boxes?

Baby boxes are not a new invention. Kelsey said the idea for her non-profit stemmed from one of her speaking tours in 2013 when she attended a church in Cape Town, South Africa. The church had a baby safe box that was provided so women could bring their children there anonymously at night. A church member would then adopt the abandoned child.

So, while flying at 35,000 feet aboard an airplane back to the United States, Kelsey drew a picture of her version of a baby box on a napkin.

“That is when I started the uphill battle of implementing something that had never been done in America before,” Kelsey said.

The process is simple — a person can place a newborn baby in a medical-grade baby bassinet lined with a blanket and padding, retrieve a bag filled with educational resources, close the door and walk away.

Sensors immediately detect the baby, triggering a series of silent alarms for emergency personnel to retrieve the newborn. The baby remains in the 75-to-85-degree box between 45 seconds to 5 minutes. Once removed from the box, the newborn will receive any necessary medical care.

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Child Protective Services will then intervene to place the child in foster care for later adoption, which could vary from 30 days to 3 months.

Kelsey said in the event that the box loses electricity, a “power-off alarm” will notify the local fire department. The outside door will be locked, and a sign stating the words “Do Not Use” would be hung on the box.

“We had to start educating people that these boxes were safe and that babies were only in it for a matter of minutes," Kelsey said. "But, I think the majority of people now understand the program and support what we're doing."

With 206 active baby boxes installed in the United States, the organization said 43 babies have been surrendered at their baby boxes since 2017. The use of newborn drop-off boxes is now operating in at least 15 states, including Mississippi.

Where are baby boxes located in Mississippi?

Two of the 206 active boxes are located in Mississippi, one at Simpson General Hospital in Mendenhall and one at a fire station in Long Beach.

On Jan. 24, Simpson General Hospital became the first hospital in the state to install a safe haven baby box. The $20,000 box was entirely funded within two weeks by private donations from Mendenhall and Simpson County community members.

Melissa Sullivan, executive director of the Crisis Pregnancy Center of Simpson County, said as of Feb. 20, zero babies had been surrendered at the Mendenhall location. Though she hopes nobody needs the box, "We want to be here," if there is a need.

“There are so many situations where the mom may have made some bad choices related to drugs, or it could be related to sex trafficking, and she is trying to keep the baby safe,” Sullivan said. "But rather than giving judgment, we just want to say thank you to the mom for keeping her baby safe."

Sullivan and her husband Robby are biological parents but also foster parents to a Safe Haven baby who joined their family of four. She said they adopted the little boy who was surrendered at a few days old, and Sullivan said she is glad they did.

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“Personally, as an adoptive mother of a Safe Haven baby, I think about the biological mother all the time, all the time," Sullivan said. "And how grateful I am that she cared enough about her baby to make sure that he was safe. She wasn’t able to take care of him, but she knew someone could.”

Sullivan said she was assisted by Caitlin Kelly, an advocate for Safe Haven Baby Boxes, to start the initiative at Simpson General Hospital in Mendenhall.

What does Mississippi’s Safe Haven Law say?

Kelly said she and her husband, Steve, were proactive in urging the Mississippi Legislature to change the decades-old Safe Haven Laws in Mississippi. As a result of their efforts, the first safe haven baby box in the state was installed in Long Beach in 2022.

“My husband and I are both medical professionals as well as adoptive and biological parents,” Kelly said. "And we just had it on our hearts that Mississippi really needed to get on board with this mission."

During the 2023 legislative session, the Mississippi Baby Drop-off law was amended to allow parents to increase the age of babies that could legally be dropped off from 7 to 45 days. It also guaranteed anonymity of parents.

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Under previous law, a child had to be fewer than 7 days old.

“What we had to do was kind of backtrack and look at the big picture of if we wanted to just get one (baby box) in one city, or do we want to change the state law and get them all over the state?” Kelly said.

According to Kelly, at least seven other locations in the state are working toward establishing baby boxes by completing contracts or securing funding. Kelly provided the Clarion Ledger with the following areas:

• Three at fire stations: Gulfport, Hattiesburg and Waveland

• Three at hospitals: a Booneville hospital, Covington County Hospital, and a local hospital on the Mississippi Gulf Coast

• One at a police station: Gluckstadt

“This is one of those good things that you want to get behind,” Kelly said. “I'm very excited and thankful for the hearts of people that have come forward and said, 'We want to get behind this and do it in our community as well.'”

The expansion of Safe Haven Laws — and by extension baby boxes — acted as an answer to plausible thoughts that Roe vs. Wade's reversal would increase surrenders. Some state officials, including Commissioner of Agriculture and Commerce Andy Gipson, have publicly embraced drop-off baby boxes.

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Gipson, who was committee chairperson of the Mississippi Legislature at the time when Roe v. Wade was handled and passed, said his primary goal has always been to “protect mothers and rescue the lives of unborn babies” in the state and nation.

“When a baby is voluntarily placed by with a Safe Haven Baby Box such as the one at Simpson General Hospital, not only will the baby be provided immediate care and medical attention, but this process avoids a costly and unwieldy legal process of termination of parental rights," Gipson said. "That means that adoption can happen much faster and at less legal costs. This is good policy."

To date, Safe Haven Baby Boxes Inc., which is based in Indiana, has referred over 1,000 women to crisis pregnancy centers and assisted in 11 adoption referrals. The organization also has a hotline that has assisted with over 130 surrenders at Safe Haven locations and received over 9,000 calls in the nation since operation began in 2016.

The hotline is said to be staffed by emergency medical services, nurses and social workers. The staff aims to provide immediate and emergency referrals, facilitate a safe relinquishment process and connect community resources for parents and providers.

"I hope we see a Baby Box in every Mississippi community,” Gipson said.

Any parents that are in crisis and need to know where resources are located in their area, they can contact Safe Haven at 1.866.99BABY-1.

This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Safe haven laws and baby boxes in Mississippi post Roe v. Wade