Have you given much thought to abandoned babies? Many people have not, unless they happen to see a news story about an infant being found.
And when I say abandoned babies, I’m not talking about babies left in Safe Haven Baby Boxes, or babies relinquished under the Safe Haven Laws that every state has. Those are LEGAL and safe ways to surrender a child.
I’m referring to babies who are dumped. Left alone somewhere unsafe. The unimaginable situations where a newborn baby – perhaps days old or maybe even just hours – is discarded.
Tiny. Completely helpless. In need of constant care and protection from the elements.
Most of us would instinctively feel protective towards such a child and would keep it from harm. But not everyone does. Babies do get discarded.
Those who were abandoned at birth – also historically known as “foundlings” – are pretty rare.
I am one of them. We are a tiny subset of a little portion of the population. TINY, tiny subset.
How tiny? Well, in America, over 3 million babies are born each year (2013 stats). While the number of abandoned infants is impossible to determine, estimates range from 150 – 2000 babies per year, just in the United States.
If I’ve got my math right, between five one-thousandths of one percent and six one-hundredths of one percent of babies born in the USA each year are dumped.
So it’s a really small number that we think are dumped. That’s good.
But it’s not great news, either. Because not all of them make it.
Over 50% of abandoned babies are found deceased.
Less than half survive the act of being discarded.
There are a lot of reasons for this, such as no prenatal care for the mother, prematurity, unsafe or unsanitary birth conditions, and no medical care right after birth.
Also – let’s be realistic – it is pretty easy to dispose of something as small as a newborn baby without getting caught. My personal opinion is that the number of abandonments each year is on the higher end of that 150-2000 estimate.
I belong to a small online group of people who were left at birth as I was. I’ve “met”, virtually, a few hundred people who were discarded and survived.
This is a list of places – with no identifying location details – that some of them were left, soon after birth.
As you read this list, please try to picture a newborn left alone in each of these situations.
- on the front porch of a house
- in a dumpster (3 responses)
- in weeds by a garbage can in a trailer park
- on a school bus
- in a paper bag on a front porch
- In a trash can in a women’s bathroom at a drive-in theater
- at a Catholic church
- in the front seat of a car parked at a hospital
- in a box in an apartment hallway (2 responses)
- outside a store
- on a doorstep
- in a wooded area under a pine tree
- in the back seat of a car
- on the steps of a hospital
- on a laundry room floor in an apartment building
- in the pew of a church
- on the banks of a large river
- in a fast food restaurant bathroom
- in a hospital bathroom
- under a bus bench
- at a train station
- in a ladies room trash can at a gas station
- on the sidewalk outside a hospital
- in a hotel room (4 responses)
- in a field
- at a bus stop
- in the men’s room of a gas station
- in the back doorway of a hospital
- in a shopping bag in an alley
- between two branches of a tree
- in a box under a tree
- in a vacant building
- on church steps
- in a car
- on a driveway
- in a stairwell
- in a rosebush
- in an airport ladies room
- in an office building lobby
- in a phone booth outside a gas station
- in a backyard greenhouse
- in a laundromat
- under tarps at a building being renovated
- under a bush near a church
- in the street
This is one small list.
A list from one small group of survivors, who met in one small forum of people, looking for support and answers.
In some cases, these infants appear to have been left in places where they would hopefully be found, saved, and cared for. In other cases, no care seems to have been held for the child’s survival one way or another – and in still other cases, obvious attempts to conceal the babies were made.
