BLACKFOOT, Idaho — Police are looking into what happened after the body of a baby girl was found in a box at a hospital in southeast Idaho on Monday. The box was meant for people to secretly give up newborns.
News sites said that on October 13, police in Blackfoot, Idaho, which is about 250 miles (400 kilometers) east of Boise, were called to Grove Creek Medical Center to report that a dead baby had been left in the Safe Haven Baby Box.
In a post on Monday, Monica Kelsey, founder of Safe Haven Baby Boxes, said that hospital staff reacted within one minute to an alarm that said a baby was in the box, which was set up earlier this year. The staff knew right away that the baby had died before it was put in the crib.
“It breaks our hearts,” Kelsey said. “Anonymity is only allowed when an infant is given up safely and without any harm.”
Idaho law says that a baby can only be given up if it is healthy and not hurt.
Officials say that the group and the hospital staff are working with police detectives. It was wrapped in a blanket, and Kelsey said the placenta was still connected.
The Grove Creek Medical Center said on social media on Monday that their staff “gave their all in a heartbreaking situation.”
It was Kelsey who was left behind after giving birth in 1973. In 2016, she started Safe Haven Baby Boxes in Indiana. The boxes that fire departments and hospitals have are meant to give people a safe and private way to turn in a baby.
The boxes made for medical use are mounted on the outside wall of the building. When a newborn is put inside, an outside door locks automatically. To keep the baby safe, a medical staff member opens an inside door.
You can get boxes in more than a dozen states. Kelsey said that since 2017, 52 babies have been turned in at the organization’s baby boxes.
People will still be taught about how the program works by Safe Haven Baby Boxes, she said.
