Safe Haven Baby Box now available in Athens
The first Safe Haven Baby Box in Alabama was installed at the Madison Fire Station in January, and 12 days later, a newborn girl was placed in the box.
By Wes Tomlinson
ATHENS — Whether it’s in the middle of the day or after midnight, pregnant women in Limestone County now have another option if they choose to surrender their newborn: a new Safe Haven Baby Box at Athens-Limestone Hospital.
The box was officially “unlocked,” on Tuesday at a ribbon cutting and blessing ceremony as health officials at the hospital and the public were able to tour the emergency medical services division building at 210 Horton St. where the baby box was installed on the wall next to the front door.
Alabama passed a Safe Haven law last year that gives mothers 45 days to anonymously surrender their newborns and authorizes the use of baby boxes like these. The state is one of 19 that have a Safe Haven Law. The box is the 10th one installed in Alabama and there are approximately 276 in the United States in 20 different states, according to Safe Haven Baby Boxes Founder Monica Kelsey.
Kelsey installed the first Baby Box in her hometown of Woodburn, Indiana, at their fire station in 2016. The first one in Alabama was installed at the Madison Fire Station in January, and 12 days later, a newborn girl was placed in the box.
“It is a good day to be in Athens, because today, we give women another option,” Kelsey told the crowd at the ceremony. “They still have the option to walk inside this facility and hand their child to a person, but if they can’t do that, then now we have another option available for them so we don’t find a baby in a dumpster or a trash can, which is happening every three days in America.”
Decatur Morgan Hospital is planning to open a Safe Haven box near the emergency room at its main campus in the future.
Kelsey, a retired firefighter, medic and military veteran, said she began this project to deter mothers from abandoning their children, drawing from personal experience from her own abandonment shortly after she was born in Montpelier, Ohio. During that time, there was no Safe Haven Law in place.
“I’m going to take you back to August of 1972 when a young 17-year-old girl was brutally attacked and raped and left along the side of the road,” Kelsey said. “When her life finally got back to normal, she found out she was pregnant, and she gave birth in April of 1973 and abandoned her child two hours after that child was born. And that child was me.”
Kourtney Ennis, director of the hospital’s emergency department, said once the infant is placed inside the temperature-controlled box, a laser inside the box will indicate to staff an object has been placed inside, and immediately after, the exterior door of the box will lock.
“There is a 60-second delay from the time the exterior door is locked to when our central alarm system pages us,” Ennis said. “We have an alarm here and down at the main campus at the hospital and they page it out over the radio just like they would in an ambulance call.”
Ennis said afterwards, an emergency room physician will give the infant a brief medical examination, and if all signs are clear, the infant is then moved to the newborn nursery.
“They’ll do some routine newborn labs to determine if there are any diseases or anything going on with the baby,” Ennis said.
Ennis said they will then notify the Limestone County Department of Human Resources within two hours and the agency will gain custody of the infant.
Brett McGill, service line director of emergency services at the hospital, said all their staff have been trained on how the box works and how to expedite the response time once the infant is placed in the baby box.
“We’re treating it just like another ambulance call,” McGill said.
McGill said they have trained all staff on every shift. He said they will continue to provide training and have used baby dolls in the boxes for practice.
“We tested for seven straight days and now we test every Tuesday,” McGill said. “At some point during the 24 hours, the supervisor will open that box and put a baby doll in there. We don’t tell them what time and it happens every Tuesday. It just makes sure everyone stays at a state of readiness.”
