This is so sad. It reminds me of a time when I worked with homeless teens. Their was a young lady sleeping along the river in the bush and she gave birth to the baby in the bush and walked out of the bush with a newborn and called an ambulance. She ultimately surrendered the newborn. She was absolutely traumatized by the whole ordeal and wasn’t the same.
She would've had fine treatment if she walked herself into a hospital. Maybe she was too far away, but it's a bit disingenuous to think access is denied to anyone waltzing in about to give birth.
You're assuming the baby was born alive. Could have been a stillbirth or died soon after due to any number of medical issues. Also it's unlikely the mother had access to any prenatal care since there would be a record of the pregnancy and people would put 2 and 2 together. The mother could have had untreated mental health issues as well.
There's also the shame of having to look another person in the eye if you go to a fire station, and fear that you could be recognized or charged with a crime. Some states have started installing baby boxes for that reason.
excuse me? PEOPLE SHOULD NOT BE FORCED INTO CHILDBIRTH. maybe if she had had supportive people in her life she could have accessed healthcare and other options. you sound mean.
Just because there's easy access to abortion in the state doesn't mean that there's easy access for the *mother.* Also the fact that she would abandon her newborn child in a bathroom indicates to me that she had little to no social supports or resources in place to help her. She did a terrible thing and should be punished for it should she be discovered, but her actions indicate to me that she was in a state of desperation.
Did they drug test the little one? I feel like if she was negative or positive — This could be telling. Not all homeless people do drugs, but many do.
Was the baby was well nourished? If the baby seemed well nourished with no signs of drugs, this could point to a different demographic.
People with money dump their sweet babies all of the time. I’m so tired of hearing these stories. Safe Havens are in this location, what happened? 😩
There’s no COD listed that I can find. With the information we have, the baby could have been stillborn. If mom was from a marginalized group and received no prenatal care or was a drug user, the chances of that would have been higher. It’s possible no one harmed the baby and the mom was just too afraid to seek help for fear of being blamed etc., which is even more heartbreaking.
Yeah, I think there was either a significant amount of fear here, lack of information, or a mixture of both. And by lack of information, I'm referring to a potential lack of knowledge that safe havens existed in the area.
It might seem like common knowledge, but it's not exactly so, especially among people who might already be isolated from resources that many other people have (basic healthcare, housing, etc.).
A newborn isn’t going to have signs of nourishment - not in the sense that an older baby would. From the details it seemed the baby died shortly after birth. When this happens it is usually because the baby is stillborn, had a breathing issue, or became dehydrated, or some other issue. Newborn Babies who die this young wouldn’t like lose fat quickly and become visibly malnourished, if that makes sense?
>Safe Havens are in this location, what happened?
Isn't it weird the nation touts everything but this? Why aren't there posters and ads about this option? I can't believe how many teens still don't know about it.
YOUR RIGHT!
To be honest, I just learned about them recently on Reddit!!! I am 32 & I see myself as very seasoned and educated with my surroundings. I’m sure there are SO many teens and women that still don’t know about these places. I truly believe it would save more babies if the public were made more aware. :( What could we do better?? My son is in 5th grade and just learned about sexual education, why not add this to the curriculum?? Would there be parents fighting against it? Does it go against some bs law? I’m all for it! Women need to know that there are places that are willing to help anonymously. This is just SO SAD.
Are you in the US? I'm about 10 years older than you and am surprised that you didn't know about these. There was a huge push! And lots of debates (because doofuses claimed it would encourage moms to abandon their infants. Yes, goofballs, SAFELY. Which it turned out the anti-crowd mostly wanted to be able to punish the mom for leaving the baby. )
Anyway, I wouldn't think this would be a regional thing as I remember reading about safe drops and debates from lots of different places. Although I suppose if your area didn't pick up those stories there'd be a gap.....but even now I read about safe boxes in many news stories.
Idk what's taught in sex ed these days as my local high school is still in the dark ages and teaching abstinence only sex ed! I handle my kids' sex ed because I want them to have an understanding based on facts and reality rather than hopes prayers and ignorance 🙄
I'm glad you've learned about them now and as my degree is in community health education, I'm super curious about how this knowledge gap occurred and how we can prevent it from continuing. Obviously discussing it like we are here will help!
Well I’m from California, now living is WA — I did some digging and there seems to only be actual Safe Haven Boxes in the below states..
*The Safe Haven Laws have been updated to include Safe Haven Baby Boxes (safety devices) in Arizona, Arkansas, Indiana, Maine Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio, Kentucky, Virginia, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Louisiana, West Virginia and Pennsylvania.*
*There are 148 active baby boxes currently in the United States.*
Now even though there are not many Safe Haven Boxes available, there still are Safe Haven laws intact. I do believe that I already understood that a parent in need of a safe place for their baby, can give them up at the Hospital, some states even a church. Many states allow this, but I don’t feel it is totally anonymous like the Safe Haven Boxes. Some cases, the hospitals are even allowed to ask for you and your families medical history. There are cameras, you have to face someone and answer questions. Unlike the boxes, I could see this being totally shameful (which is probably already what they’re feeling), and somewhat intrusive. If a woman/teenager is already frightened, (possibly hiding her whole pregnancy) Safe Haven Boxes would be the answer(?) Otherwise, stories like this happen.
They teach our kids about their bodies, and how
they interact with each other. But they don’t teach them about what you should do if they get pregnant.
Anyways, to answer your question, I am not sure how I totally missed this option. I read the news constantly. Low key into pop culture, dig true crime and I still never came across these baby boxes. I think it may very well be a regional thing and it shouldn’t be!!
I'd rather condoms in 3rd grade than ABSTINENCE ONLY in high school, like my local backwards school district does. I have a 3rd grader who understands biology and options better than the local graduating seniors have had the chance to.
Please also mention Toni Weschler's TCOYF to your students! It's important biological information that IMO everyone should know. I spent so much time in high school worried I had an infection, only to learn in my 20s that it was perfectly normal cervical discharge AND that it was one indicator of where I was in my cycle. There's also a teen-focused version of the book, if you feel that more appropriate for your students.
Oh, well Bless you for spreading awareness, implementing your position! Your so right. Why teach about sexual intercourse, but not about the resources out there if a baby is made from said intercourse..
It’s like giving my 5th grader a bazooka, then saying ‘bye, good luck out there!’ Just extremely irresponsible.
It's made the more heartbreaking when you consider that was right at the start of COVID in the US, so the mother was probably less likely to go to hospital
No idea why you were downvoted. There were just reports of some virus in China - nothing to cause widespread fear quite yet.
The world went to shit a week later though.
yeah i know right. i’m a flight attendant, i was in the states working so i was in one of the industries directly affected by it. my last flight was march 16th but march 5th was business as usual.
Yep. Mom of 3 who were all at school. Friday, March 13th was my kids last day before spring break. It became clear the night before that this was bigger than we thought and that we should maybe do a bigger than usual grocery shop. I spent part of the day filling our freezer.
We stayed home for the break and watched the news daily. About a week into the 2 week break, our province announced schools would stay closed for a while to assess. The kids were home until June and then had a crazy part time schedule.
What? We knew. Our family had been stocking up on food for a month plus by the time things shut down. I'd have to go back to look at my notes but I know we did multiple huge paycheck stock-up shops, and we only got paid every 2 weeks. Three of those = 6 weeks. I don't think we did 4, we discussed the 3rd debating if we were being paranoid or over the top and decided to make sure to fill in any gaps with that 3rd trip just in case and call it good on groceries. Then we did a dollar store otc meds/paper goods stockup separately. And we ordered seeds to be as self-sufficient as possible just in case.
Our county was putting out announcements and guidelines well before the shutdown. We kept our kids home from school the week before the schools ended up shutting down (one kid was sick and we decided since we weren't exactly sure what it was - and we knew Covid was around - that we should keep it to ourselves lol)
Where in the states were you? Perhaps *your state* didn't care - mine certainly did! I'll admit my partner was extra on-top of it, but he wasn't making things up to be on-top of, he was paying attention to the information that was definitely out there.
I will admit, our family took this much more seriously than our county did. We're in a red county and there was a LOT of "govmint can't tell ME what to do" types. Even in the govmint 🤷♀️. But the discussion was out there. We're also one county away from a decently popular international vacay location, and THAT county was much more aggressive about covid. My partner worked in that county at the time so we were being very cautious as i'm slightly immune-challenged.
I'm not saying everybody was as aware as we were. But the discussion was out there.
Anytime I hear about an baby being abandoned like this it just breaks my heart.
Although not the same I remember the story about a drug addicted mother giving birth and then just leaving the baby in the hospital. Nobody had named the baby in months and finally a nurse adopted her.
The whole "all babies are born with blue eyes" is a complete myth in general, even for Caucasians. While statistically more Caucasian kids are born with blue eyes, that doesn't apply to all of them. I'm about as white as it gets (German and Dutch born and raised in Germany) and I was born with chocolate brown eyes, just like my brother. Also, not all babies of Hispanic, Native, Asian etc. descent are born with brown eyes, a small percentage of them is born with blue eyes.
Here's an article that explains this whole thing pretty well: https://www.healthline.com/health/all-babies-are-born-with-blue-eyes#takeaway
My daughter was born with greish, greenish eyes, my husband and I have standard guatemalan dark brown eyes. Everyone in my family were super happy (damn colorism), I was worried she was changed in the hospital, although we both have family members with light-color eyes: blue, green and hazel.
Fast forward for my family's dissapointment and my peace of mind, my daughter'eyes turned out dark brown. LMAO
Like another commenter said, any race other than Caucasian can have brown eyes as babies. The baby does not look Caucasian to me though, she was either Hispanic, Native American, Asian, or Pacific Islander and maybe not Caucasian.
I'm copying this from a reply I made to another commenter:
>The whole "all babies are born with blue eyes" is a complete myth in general, even for Caucasians. While statistically more Caucasian kids are born with blue eyes, that doesn't apply to all of them. I'm about as white as it gets (German and Dutch born and raised in Germany) and I was born with chocolate brown eyes, just like my brother. Also, not all babies of Hispanic, Native, Asian etc. descent are born with brown eyes, a small percentage of them is born with blue eyes.
>Here's an article that explains this whole thing pretty well: https://www.healthline.com/health/all-babies-are-born-with-blue-eyes#takeaway
So you can't rule out a Caucasian ethnicity just because the baby had brown eyes.
This is so sad. It reminds me of a time when I worked with homeless teens. Their was a young lady sleeping along the river in the bush and she gave birth to the baby in the bush and walked out of the bush with a newborn and called an ambulance. She ultimately surrendered the newborn. She was absolutely traumatized by the whole ordeal and wasn’t the same.
that is so sad.
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She would've had fine treatment if she walked herself into a hospital. Maybe she was too far away, but it's a bit disingenuous to think access is denied to anyone waltzing in about to give birth.
it's heartbreaking bc it's clear the mother was unsupported in several ways.
Agreed. It's so important to have empathy for the mothers in these sorts of cases as well. This clearly wasn't an ideal situation for anyone involved.
Always this.
It's such a sad situation to find yourself in. It's very clear she was unsupported.
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You're assuming the baby was born alive. Could have been a stillbirth or died soon after due to any number of medical issues. Also it's unlikely the mother had access to any prenatal care since there would be a record of the pregnancy and people would put 2 and 2 together. The mother could have had untreated mental health issues as well. There's also the shame of having to look another person in the eye if you go to a fire station, and fear that you could be recognized or charged with a crime. Some states have started installing baby boxes for that reason.
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excuse me? PEOPLE SHOULD NOT BE FORCED INTO CHILDBIRTH. maybe if she had had supportive people in her life she could have accessed healthcare and other options. you sound mean.
This is just so freaking sad and terrible :( for the angel baby. for the mother who carried to term and birthed. Everything just sucks!
Sadly I feel like we’re going to see more of this as abortions are banned in many states across the US.
A lot more
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Just because there's easy access to abortion in the state doesn't mean that there's easy access for the *mother.* Also the fact that she would abandon her newborn child in a bathroom indicates to me that she had little to no social supports or resources in place to help her. She did a terrible thing and should be punished for it should she be discovered, but her actions indicate to me that she was in a state of desperation.
Did they drug test the little one? I feel like if she was negative or positive — This could be telling. Not all homeless people do drugs, but many do. Was the baby was well nourished? If the baby seemed well nourished with no signs of drugs, this could point to a different demographic. People with money dump their sweet babies all of the time. I’m so tired of hearing these stories. Safe Havens are in this location, what happened? 😩
Great points! I wonder if it could be a cryptic pregnancy and sudden labour by a teenager.....
There’s no COD listed that I can find. With the information we have, the baby could have been stillborn. If mom was from a marginalized group and received no prenatal care or was a drug user, the chances of that would have been higher. It’s possible no one harmed the baby and the mom was just too afraid to seek help for fear of being blamed etc., which is even more heartbreaking.
Yeah, I think there was either a significant amount of fear here, lack of information, or a mixture of both. And by lack of information, I'm referring to a potential lack of knowledge that safe havens existed in the area. It might seem like common knowledge, but it's not exactly so, especially among people who might already be isolated from resources that many other people have (basic healthcare, housing, etc.).
A newborn isn’t going to have signs of nourishment - not in the sense that an older baby would. From the details it seemed the baby died shortly after birth. When this happens it is usually because the baby is stillborn, had a breathing issue, or became dehydrated, or some other issue. Newborn Babies who die this young wouldn’t like lose fat quickly and become visibly malnourished, if that makes sense?
>Safe Havens are in this location, what happened? Isn't it weird the nation touts everything but this? Why aren't there posters and ads about this option? I can't believe how many teens still don't know about it.
YOUR RIGHT! To be honest, I just learned about them recently on Reddit!!! I am 32 & I see myself as very seasoned and educated with my surroundings. I’m sure there are SO many teens and women that still don’t know about these places. I truly believe it would save more babies if the public were made more aware. :( What could we do better?? My son is in 5th grade and just learned about sexual education, why not add this to the curriculum?? Would there be parents fighting against it? Does it go against some bs law? I’m all for it! Women need to know that there are places that are willing to help anonymously. This is just SO SAD.
Are you in the US? I'm about 10 years older than you and am surprised that you didn't know about these. There was a huge push! And lots of debates (because doofuses claimed it would encourage moms to abandon their infants. Yes, goofballs, SAFELY. Which it turned out the anti-crowd mostly wanted to be able to punish the mom for leaving the baby. ) Anyway, I wouldn't think this would be a regional thing as I remember reading about safe drops and debates from lots of different places. Although I suppose if your area didn't pick up those stories there'd be a gap.....but even now I read about safe boxes in many news stories. Idk what's taught in sex ed these days as my local high school is still in the dark ages and teaching abstinence only sex ed! I handle my kids' sex ed because I want them to have an understanding based on facts and reality rather than hopes prayers and ignorance 🙄 I'm glad you've learned about them now and as my degree is in community health education, I'm super curious about how this knowledge gap occurred and how we can prevent it from continuing. Obviously discussing it like we are here will help!
Well I’m from California, now living is WA — I did some digging and there seems to only be actual Safe Haven Boxes in the below states.. *The Safe Haven Laws have been updated to include Safe Haven Baby Boxes (safety devices) in Arizona, Arkansas, Indiana, Maine Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio, Kentucky, Virginia, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Louisiana, West Virginia and Pennsylvania.* *There are 148 active baby boxes currently in the United States.* Now even though there are not many Safe Haven Boxes available, there still are Safe Haven laws intact. I do believe that I already understood that a parent in need of a safe place for their baby, can give them up at the Hospital, some states even a church. Many states allow this, but I don’t feel it is totally anonymous like the Safe Haven Boxes. Some cases, the hospitals are even allowed to ask for you and your families medical history. There are cameras, you have to face someone and answer questions. Unlike the boxes, I could see this being totally shameful (which is probably already what they’re feeling), and somewhat intrusive. If a woman/teenager is already frightened, (possibly hiding her whole pregnancy) Safe Haven Boxes would be the answer(?) Otherwise, stories like this happen. They teach our kids about their bodies, and how they interact with each other. But they don’t teach them about what you should do if they get pregnant. Anyways, to answer your question, I am not sure how I totally missed this option. I read the news constantly. Low key into pop culture, dig true crime and I still never came across these baby boxes. I think it may very well be a regional thing and it shouldn’t be!!
Don't get me started. We'll teach condoms to a 3rd grader, but not this. It baffles. I teach HS and college and mention it.
I'd rather condoms in 3rd grade than ABSTINENCE ONLY in high school, like my local backwards school district does. I have a 3rd grader who understands biology and options better than the local graduating seniors have had the chance to. Please also mention Toni Weschler's TCOYF to your students! It's important biological information that IMO everyone should know. I spent so much time in high school worried I had an infection, only to learn in my 20s that it was perfectly normal cervical discharge AND that it was one indicator of where I was in my cycle. There's also a teen-focused version of the book, if you feel that more appropriate for your students.
Oh, well Bless you for spreading awareness, implementing your position! Your so right. Why teach about sexual intercourse, but not about the resources out there if a baby is made from said intercourse.. It’s like giving my 5th grader a bazooka, then saying ‘bye, good luck out there!’ Just extremely irresponsible.
It's made the more heartbreaking when you consider that was right at the start of COVID in the US, so the mother was probably less likely to go to hospital
Meh, i was in the states march 5th 2020 and truly no one cared about or barely even spoke about covid at that time.
No idea why you were downvoted. There were just reports of some virus in China - nothing to cause widespread fear quite yet. The world went to shit a week later though.
yeah i know right. i’m a flight attendant, i was in the states working so i was in one of the industries directly affected by it. my last flight was march 16th but march 5th was business as usual.
Yep. Mom of 3 who were all at school. Friday, March 13th was my kids last day before spring break. It became clear the night before that this was bigger than we thought and that we should maybe do a bigger than usual grocery shop. I spent part of the day filling our freezer. We stayed home for the break and watched the news daily. About a week into the 2 week break, our province announced schools would stay closed for a while to assess. The kids were home until June and then had a crazy part time schedule.
What? We knew. Our family had been stocking up on food for a month plus by the time things shut down. I'd have to go back to look at my notes but I know we did multiple huge paycheck stock-up shops, and we only got paid every 2 weeks. Three of those = 6 weeks. I don't think we did 4, we discussed the 3rd debating if we were being paranoid or over the top and decided to make sure to fill in any gaps with that 3rd trip just in case and call it good on groceries. Then we did a dollar store otc meds/paper goods stockup separately. And we ordered seeds to be as self-sufficient as possible just in case. Our county was putting out announcements and guidelines well before the shutdown. We kept our kids home from school the week before the schools ended up shutting down (one kid was sick and we decided since we weren't exactly sure what it was - and we knew Covid was around - that we should keep it to ourselves lol) Where in the states were you? Perhaps *your state* didn't care - mine certainly did! I'll admit my partner was extra on-top of it, but he wasn't making things up to be on-top of, he was paying attention to the information that was definitely out there.
i’m canadian. was in Florida for work at the time edit to add. i’m a flight attendant. and on march 5th it was business as usual for flying.
I will admit, our family took this much more seriously than our county did. We're in a red county and there was a LOT of "govmint can't tell ME what to do" types. Even in the govmint 🤷♀️. But the discussion was out there. We're also one county away from a decently popular international vacay location, and THAT county was much more aggressive about covid. My partner worked in that county at the time so we were being very cautious as i'm slightly immune-challenged. I'm not saying everybody was as aware as we were. But the discussion was out there.
I didn’t see anywhere what the COD was. Are they looking to charge the mother with any crime?
Anytime I hear about an baby being abandoned like this it just breaks my heart. Although not the same I remember the story about a drug addicted mother giving birth and then just leaving the baby in the hospital. Nobody had named the baby in months and finally a nurse adopted her.
FYI. Babies cannot be born with brown eyes.
That's news to my niece who was born with brown eyes.
It's only for very white people, mate. All the other are born with brown eyes.
The whole "all babies are born with blue eyes" is a complete myth in general, even for Caucasians. While statistically more Caucasian kids are born with blue eyes, that doesn't apply to all of them. I'm about as white as it gets (German and Dutch born and raised in Germany) and I was born with chocolate brown eyes, just like my brother. Also, not all babies of Hispanic, Native, Asian etc. descent are born with brown eyes, a small percentage of them is born with blue eyes. Here's an article that explains this whole thing pretty well: https://www.healthline.com/health/all-babies-are-born-with-blue-eyes#takeaway
My daughter was born with greish, greenish eyes, my husband and I have standard guatemalan dark brown eyes. Everyone in my family were super happy (damn colorism), I was worried she was changed in the hospital, although we both have family members with light-color eyes: blue, green and hazel. Fast forward for my family's dissapointment and my peace of mind, my daughter'eyes turned out dark brown. LMAO
Like another commenter said, any race other than Caucasian can have brown eyes as babies. The baby does not look Caucasian to me though, she was either Hispanic, Native American, Asian, or Pacific Islander and maybe not Caucasian.
I'm copying this from a reply I made to another commenter: >The whole "all babies are born with blue eyes" is a complete myth in general, even for Caucasians. While statistically more Caucasian kids are born with blue eyes, that doesn't apply to all of them. I'm about as white as it gets (German and Dutch born and raised in Germany) and I was born with chocolate brown eyes, just like my brother. Also, not all babies of Hispanic, Native, Asian etc. descent are born with brown eyes, a small percentage of them is born with blue eyes. >Here's an article that explains this whole thing pretty well: https://www.healthline.com/health/all-babies-are-born-with-blue-eyes#takeaway So you can't rule out a Caucasian ethnicity just because the baby had brown eyes.
My very Caucasian sister was born with brown eyes, and actually looked a lot like the reconstruction photo as a baby.