Safe and anonymous option to surrender infants now available at Lexington fire station
A new and safe way to surrender an infant was unveiled Wednesday at a local Lexington fire station Wednesday.
A Safe Haven Baby Box opened at Lexington Fire Station No. 2, marking the first Safe Haven Baby Box to be installed in Lexington. Safe Haven Baby Box is a nonprofit organization whose main mission is to reduce infant abandonment across the United States.
Twenty states, including Kentucky, feature Safe Haven Baby Boxes. There are 49 boxes throughout Kentucky, including the latest installment in Lexington.
Lexington Mayor Linda Gorton said during a ceremony unveiling the baby box that it was fitting the city got its first one during 250Lex’s Health and Wellness Month.
“I am so happy that Lexington finally has this,” Gorton said. “The Safe Haven Baby Box at fire station two is a perfect place and provides a safe environment for a surrendered newborn until emergency medical care can come to the child’s need, usually within a few minutes.”
What is a Safe Haven Baby Box?
A Safe Haven Baby Box provides a safe and anonymous opportunity for parents to surrender a newborn baby if they cannot care for it. Parents simply open a door on the outside of the fire station, place the baby inside a bassinet and surrender the baby to the fire station.
The exterior door locks automatically when a newborn is placed inside and an alarm inside the fire station is triggered. Fire Chief Jason Wells said the department’s dispatch center is also notified in case firefighters at the station are out on a run.
“When the box opens, it triggers a series of events and a number of fail-safes to ensure that we’re able to get to that infant on the inside,” Wells said.
The infant is then immediately be checked out by EMS staff at the fire station. The baby is transported to a hospital and handed over for social service care after being medically cleared.
Kentucky has a Safe Infants Act that allows parents to leave babies younger than 30 days old at a safe location, such as a fire station, police station or hospital. But Safe Haven Baby Boxes offer a safer way to surrender the baby, since it has built-in triggers to alert officials.
“The men and women at the Lexington Fire Department come to work each and every day with a very simple, but profoundly important mission: Saving lives and protecting property,” Wells said. “... We can now provide our community with a new and innovative way to fulfill that mission of saving lives and protecting property.”
Wells said every firefighter in the department is required to undergo emergency medical technician training, so they are prepared to handle surrendered infants.
“As part of that training, we do have not only initial training but ongoing training about pediatric care,” Wells said. “All of our stations are also safe places, so there’s training that goes along with that.”
Safe Haven Baby Boxes’ growth
Safe Haven Baby Boxes began in 2016 after Monica Kelsey, founder and CEO of the organization, learned about baby boxes while on a trip to Cape Town, South Africa. She brought the idea back to her home state of Indiana and founded the company.
Jessi Getrost, Administrative Executive Assistant with Safe Haven Baby Boxes, said about three abandoned infants are found dead in the U.S. every week. Since the organization started its work in 2016, there have been no recorded abandonments in Indiana.
Since 2016 the organization has recorded 55 box surrenders and more than 150 hand-off surrenders, Getrost said. Four babies have been surrendered in Kentucky.
The latest Kentucky Safe Haven Baby Box surrender happened at Montgomery County Fire EMS on June 17, 2024, according to Getrost. The first surrender happened in 2023 in Bowling Green.
Knights of Columbus contacted the local fire department to start the process of bringing a baby box to Lexington, Wells said. And they hope to open more in Lexington.
“We’re just getting started, and we want to let parents know that they now have the anonymous option, should they choose it, to safely, legally surrender their infant,” Getrost said. “We hope that one day we can stop infant abandonment across this country.”
