To think there may be some value in systems of 'baby boxes'.

[AgentZigzag]

I don't want to upset anyone who finds this subject distressing, and I apologise if I do. Baby boxes are a safe 'hole in the wall' where 'foundling' babies can be left, and the BBC had an article about their rise in Europe in the past few years.

Babies can be anonymously left in the hatch which is warm, has blankets, and is regularly checked (with a buzzer to say the door has been opened).

There's also a letter telling the person who to call if they change their minds, out of the 42 babies left in Hamburg in the last 10 years, 17 mums contacted them and 14 took their babies back, so they can work.

And although there have been studies showing other people may put a baby in the hatch (like relatives or pimps) the end result is the same for both situations, the baby is safe.

The fact that mums who are in very desperate situations do leave their babies in places that aren't safe make me think they, and their babies, should at least be given an option if all other avenues are closed off to the mums (for whatever reasons). It doesn't necessarily encourage anyone to leave their baby when they wouldn't have otherwise.

The tokens left by mums in the Foundling Hospital in the 1700s are heartbreaking, and a similar situation happening in 2012 would still be a breaking of the almost sacred (even though it is socially constructed) bond between a mum and her baby forever, something which could cause unimaginable pain on both sides.

Does it matter if the reasons for babies being left might have changed over the years if people are still leaving babies?

Who is anyone to judge the mum for not feeling able to take up the other options available to her, like social services or family support, wherever she lives?

Does it just come down to the safety of the baby, even if that risks the mum never being found and supported?

Again, I am sorry if this stirs up distressing memories in someone's life.

I think your right. Ideally nobody would be in a position where they felt their only option was to abandon the baby, but sadly some people are so a system whereby people can do it safely makes sense.

As much as I hate hearing about any babies being abandoned I would rather if it was going to happen it was somewhere the baby was safe and would soon be found.

Sadly, no system is going to mean the mother gets the immediate help she needs though.

I think of this working, especially when you her on the news about a baby being found in a phone box/on a door step. It seems a much gentler and safer way of leaving your baby.

The token article you linked to was quite sad, some of the objects!

Yanbu. Recently in my town(Reading) a baby was left outside a church. Having a baby box must be safer for the child.

I'm still on the fence about this.....yes, pimps may leave babies in these boxes, but the alternative for such babies isn't going to be great, is it?!

Then again, what happens to these babies? Do they end up being passed from foster carer to foster carer in the hope that the mother comes forward? Are they adopted quickly?

Either way the mother isn't going to be supported.

But I suspect they are only in large cities.

A baby dying from cold would still happen in less populated areas.

Although it doesn't help the mum Lynette, it can help the baby, and they are in just as vulnerable a situation, if not more, IMO. The mum can only get help if they're prepared to accept it, if they don't and there's no help available for their baby it's a lose/lose situation isn't it?

It's not something anyone wants to talk about, which makes it incredibly difficult for women who don't have the feelings other people think they should have about their babies, or who are in situations other people think they should be able to overcome to live with their children.

Does that make a lot of it to do with what 'other people' think and feel about the relationship between a baby and their mum? Which if you took that away the mum could stay with their baby?

Here they have boxes, but I've never seen one. But a Mom can leave her baby at any hospital, fire station, or police department no questions asked. They give her a wrist band like you get when you are in hospital and they put one with the same number on, on the baby's ankle and she has a set amount of time to change her mind. If she wants she can fill in a medical history for the baby. They go into the hospital for a check and then into foster care and an adopted family is picked and the baby sent there asap. Adoption is 6 months after they are placed in the adopting family's home. It has saved a lot of lifes, I think they need to extend the age range that can be dropped off. Here it's only up to 72 hours old and they have 14 days to change their mind. I think it should be up to a month or two old.

It's the least bad solution to a bad problem. There isn't going to be any nice way of dealing with this problem. At least the babies should be safe in these boxes and can hopefully be fostered or adopted by parents who will care for them.

For this to work in the UK, we would have to change our whole system of monitoring pregnant women to birth and after, which started after Fred West had been discovered to have murdered his pregnant daughter.

This monitoring gives pregnant women safety and with the rise of women and girls being trafficked, this could be an easy way of diposing of the unwanted baby boys etc.

I don't think that we need this in the UK and this would create more victims than save lives.

I would worry about this alongside the cuts in welfare benefits, especially housing benefit for the under 25's and don't think that this is an answer.

But that system of monitoring works on the premise that it's able to monitor all women Birds, and that's never going to be the case.

I agree with the things you've said about welfare cuts, but they will only lead to situations where there's more of a need to catch those falling through the net rather than less.

If people fall through the net when things aren't tight for people, whole areas losing jobs and the state not being in a situation to help will only make for more desperation wouldn't it?

The system you're describing Calafornia, isn't truly anonymous if they get given wrist bands/asked for history etc. And that must be crucial for some situations because the interaction needed to hand over a baby to someone face-to-face must be crushing if you're having trouble 'admitting' to anyone the enormity of what you were choosing to do, or even that it's happening.

until the law changes here in the uk they wont allow those boxes altho i think they are a much better way :(

There isn't a reason for anyone to fall through the net in the UK, to the extent that they have to abandon their baby after giving birth in secret.

Whoever hands over the baby isn't just making that choice for the child, but any future siblings. The law was deveoped to allow sibling contact after those that were adopted and sent to Australia etc, had told of their dispair of never knowing where they came from.

The research is there to show that this would be a step backwards. I think for other countries, if it saves lives then all well and good, but we don't need them in the UK and to undo our laws would put children (and women) at risk, again.

At least at the moment anyone involved in conceiling a birth can be imprisoned, this is rarely used against the mother, but is there to protect her.

I can think of lots of situations where babies and mothers fall through numerous nets Birds.

There's never going to be a situation where every person is caught by the safeguards set out to help them.

Not everyone functions at the level where they are tracked by the state for a start, and assuming the system never fails anyone would be to ignore those people.

Isn't it better to work on the fact that people do abandon their babies rather than pretend it never happens and those babies don't need acknowledging?

And I'm not sure threatening to imprison a vulnerable woman at one of the blackest times of her life could ever be construed as there to protect her.

I don't mean that to sound as harsh as it might come across Birds

The woman isn't under threat, it is those that assist the conceiling, which is usually the abusers or traffickers.

No one falls through the net in the UK, as they do in other countries. Women do not have to give birth in the streets, or be homeless.

It tends to be young teenage girls that abandon their babies and baby boxes won't make a difference to them and we could not allow a system that allows the deliverer of the baby to remain unknown, without changing the law.

Babies don't have to be abandoned by those in financial hardship, the system is good enough in the UK to allow the baby to go into foster care and then adoption.

We should never encourage birth without medical supervision.

Women don't have to fall through the net, but the fact is they do for a myriad of reasons (and we can only guess at the whole picture for all abandoned babies - not sure of how many have their parents tracked down).

There's no reason for people to be homeless or lonely or suicidal because there's so much help available if only they'd reach out, but not everyone feels able to.

Do you really see it as encouraging mums to give up their babies?

Women who give up their babies will do it regardless of what provisions are there for them to do it safely, if there's even a small chance of saving one baby, shouldn't that be considered?

I wish they weren't needed, but I think they are

After hearing about a little baby girl who was abandoned near where I live and who died before anyone could find her, I think the safety of the baby is paramount. Obviously the mother needs help too, but maybe the information and anonymity of the baby box might make them come forward at some point?

With regards to other people putting the baby there, I would worry that the kind of person who could do that (not the mothers) could also do a lot worse and a baby box may be the lesser of two evils