Abandoned babies/safehaven project?

[cambridgecoral]

Hi.
I know there's been a general discussion about safehaven laws for abandoned babies in the UK on mumsnet before.

But I'd love to know if anyone knows of any projects/charities/individuals who are addressing the issue of women abandoning newborn babies outside, in bins, parks, or in the case of today's newstory, in a plastic bag at a junction.

Would love to be involved in any initiative addressing this.

Thanks!

I wonder whether someone desperate enough to abandon a newborn at less than an hour old, in the cold, would have the mental resources to reliably access such a scheme. Though worth thinking about.

I wonder if they knew there was a place/a person in their community they could leave the baby with, anonymously, whether they would choose that option rather than killing them/dumping them in a bin.

Honestly my feeling is no. I think historically approaches like this may have worked because the motivation for 'foundlings' as was, was due more to the social challenges around having a child out of marriage and the blatant misogyny around that. My experience (and sadly I have a reasonable amount) around abandoned babies is that the parents tend to have really significant mental health and/or substance misuse difficulties and they are not generally making informed decisions, alternatively occasionally serious domestic abuse/honour based violence and the man is making pretty awful decisions. Either way generally knowing that across the other side of your city is somewhere you can safely leave your baby is often not high on someones agenda.

This baby wasn't killed or dumped in a bin. It was less than an hour old so was found by the dog walker pretty quickly. It smacks of panic, desperation, in the very immediate post partum moment. No woman or girl in that moment is going to travel to a designated drop off point in an organised manner.

They have them in America right (my knowledge of this comes solely from tv)? Does anyone know what their usage is like there vs babies abandoned not at a safe haven place?

Yes it is available in the United States.

www.shbb.org/about#:~:text=Safe%20Haven%20Baby%20Boxes%20has,surrendered%20in%20our%20Baby%20Boxes.