A mother anonymously surrendered her child to Florida’s only baby box, marking its first use.
A baby box is a device installed at fire or police stations that allows mothers to surrender their babies safely and anonymously. The children will then be taken care of by authorities and put up for adoption.
The Safe Haven Baby Box was installed in December 2020 in Ocala. It remained unused for two years until last month when Ocala Fire Rescue announced an arrival in a Wednesday press conference.
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“When we launched this box in Florida, I knew it wasn’t going to be an if — it was going to be a matter of when,” Monica Kelsey, the founder of the organization, told NPR. “This does not come as a surprise.”
“We know this baby will be so loved by an adoptive family, and we are so thrilled to be a part of protecting infants from abandonment,” she added.
Each box has an upfront cost of $10,000, and maintenance costs $200 a month, according to WKMG-TV. The organization has 134 boxes listed on its website. They have been used 27 times since 2017.
Kelsey, conceived in rape and abandoned at birth, designed the boxes to allow mothers to preserve their anonymity when surrendering their baby while ensuring that the baby will be taken care of.
The climate-controlled box has an exterior door that automatically locks upon the placement of a baby inside. It then sets off an alarm to alert medical staff to come retrieve him or her. Personnel may then retrieve the child using an interior door.
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The practice has precedent in centuries past in Europe, where convents would set up rotating cribs for desperate mothers to leave their babies in, NPR reported. Baby boxes are still widespread on the continent, but the practice has its critics. A 2011 United Nations report condemned them and called for a global ban on the practice. It claimed that the system incentivizes mothers to give away their children and alleged that abusive partners and pimps can use it without the mother’s knowledge.
“As an adopted child who was abandoned as an infant, I find this report ridiculous,” Kelsey told the Washington Examiner, in response to the U.N. report. “The safe haven law was enacted to save the lives of children who were being found in trash cans and dumpsters. Those children, we have no idea who their parents are or if they were being trafficked or abused. Just like a child who is surrendered face to face under the safe haven law. We don’t know their story either. So, this statement is just ridiculous.”
