BABY DUMPS FOR ABANDONED KIDS; Could this hole in the wall be answer for Midlands' unwanted children?

Byline: FIONNUALA BOURKE

MIDLAND child campaigners are calling for the introduction of baby banks where desperate mothers can 'post' unwanted infants through a flap in the wall.

The babies would land in a warm bed and electronic sensors would then raise the alarm, enabling volunteer help to arrive within minutes, possibly saving lives.

The demand follows the dumping of three babies by mothers in the region in the last three months alone.

Half the delegates at a Foundlings Conference held in Birmingham recently said that they were in favour of the controversial Euro-style baby banks.

Others favoured anonymous hospital births, where a mother is free to leave her baby behind after labour without her identity being revealed to the newborn.

Baby banks were first introduced in Hamburg, Germany, three years ago.

Social welfare society SterniPark set up the first one on the side of a kindergarten after a dumped infant was found dead on a pile of waste paper in the city.

A cot, which is kept warm 24 hours a day, is placed on the other side of the flap because most abandoned babies die of hypothermia.

Once the baby has been posted, bed sensors are activated and within 10 minutes a volunteer can be with the child.

Counsellors

Usually the baby is taken straight to hospital for checks and the mother is free to go without any questions being asked.

Supporters are keen to stress that counsellors are on hand to talk to the mother, if required.

When the bank first opened in Germany, babies were being deposited at a rate of one a month.

In France hospitals allocate numbers to babies born anonymously so that a mother may return and be reunited with her newborn if she later changes her mind.

Pam Hodgkins, chief executive of the National Organisation for Counselling of Adoptees and Parents, said: 'Delegates at our conference were divided about whether we should facilitate abandonment.

'Researchers have considered schemes in Germany and France which protect the identity of the mother.

'Both schemes would ensure the safety of the infant, but may cause them problems in later life when they wish to seek more information about their identity.

'There have also been concerns that it may encourage more people to abandon their children and that it is morally wrong to facilitate such schemes.

'A recent European ruling prevented a French foundling being told the identity of his mother who had undergone an anonymous birth.'

Prof Audrey Mullender, from Warwick University, and Dr Anita Pavlovic, from Oxford Brookes University, have studied how useful both schemes would be for British foundlings, as dumped babies are called.

Prof Mullender said: 'Providing anonymous births under the European models may be safer for the children.

'But when they grow up, they still have no identity. They can never celebrate their true birthday and have no sense of where they are really from.'

Campaigners also want a repeal of the outdated law from Section 27 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, which makes it an offence to abandon a baby.

Ms Hodgkins said: 'Any mother who abandons her baby who may suffering from Post Natal Depression should not be considered a criminal.

'By making abandonment under these circumstances a criminal offence may also stop some mothers from coming forward.'

Police are still appealing for help in finding the mum of seven week-old Isobel, who was left in the ladies toilets at a Kidderminster shopping centre nine days ago.

Two other babies have also been abandoned in the Midlands since August.

In September, 15 month-old Joe was left in his buggy with clean clothes and nappies near the maternity unit of Sandwell General Hospital at West Bromwich. His mother turned up at the hospital to be briefly reunited with him after a media appeal and he was then passed into the care of social services.

In August, baby Sam was found abandoned in a shed in Balsall Heath, Birmingham, when he was just hours old. He was briefly reunited with his mother before he was placed into foster care.

CAPTION(S):

SAFE HAVEN ... an unwanted child is 'posted' into a German baby bank, landing in a heated cot and triggering an alarm DUMPED IN A LOO ... baby Isobel's mother still hasn't been found