Never Box A Baby

There are plenty of rules for good infant care, but one of the most important ones is “never box a baby.” And just as babies should not be hit, they also shouldn’t be abandoned in boxes. Babies are fragile and need loving care, and they don’t get that in a boxing ring, in an abusive home, nor in a dropbox of any kind.

This came to mind recently in a warehouse where the shopping carts had reminders on them that children don’t belong in the basket. Could a child fit in that basket? Probably.

Yet those in charge have good reason to know it’s not a safe place for kids. (Just as adoption agency professionals know baby boxes don’t offer the best beginning— not for babies or the parents who leave them in boxes for others to find.)

Desperate Parents Choose Desperate Measures

This year, babies were abandoned in Texas baby boxes early on, one in Lubbock and one in Abilene. Nobody knows whether the infants were left by their actual parents, by coyotes or by anyone else.

Nobody knows what the citizenship of these infants actually was. And there’s no way to ensure that both their bio-parents wanted them to be abandoned, or knew there could be better options, for them or for their babies.

Desperate parents choose desperate measures. Sometimes they just don’t understand why child welfare experts advise people should never box a baby. Safe haven baby boxes are meant to prevent infants from being unalived by their mothers or abandoned in dumpsters But experts note that the parents who do such things typically  suffer from dissociative states of mental health, and cannot think rationally enough to consider other alternatives.

The Problems with Safe Haven Baby Boxes

Her name means “hope” but Esperanza was anything but hopeful when her husband walked out on her and her kids. She was eight months pregnant, unemployed, and had three children at home under the age of five. She and her husband were raised in the US, but here illegally. She was too afraid to deliver in a hospital for fear of being turned into ICE so a midwife she knew delivered her baby in the apartment she would soon lose.

Esperanza knew nothing about making a confidential adoption plan. She didn’t know that hospitals are prohibited from turning patients into ICE. She didn’t know adoption agencies can place babies born in the US to undocumented mothers for legal adoption without reporting the parents or endangering their other children. And she didn’t know that leaving her baby in a baby box meant she and her other kids could never know how the baby’s life turned out. That led to enormous regret when she found out she could’ve made a different choice.

The problem with safe haven baby boxes is that babies in need don’t belong in boxes, and mothers in need deserve compassion and support, not just brochures in an automated drawer and an empty-handed walk of shame. (Nunca encajonar a una bebé. Llama a Abrazo para obtener ayuda y refugio seguro.)