A newborn was surrendered to a Safe Haven Baby Box in Knoxville, Tennessee, on Tuesday, the third baby surrendered to that location since it opened in February 2023.
Knoxville Fire Department Captain Tim Woods confirmed the first two infants surrendered at the Knoxville Fire Department’s Station 17 have since been adopted. The third baby was surrendered on Oct. 20, WBIR reported.
“You can’t think of what a parent’s decision is to surrender a baby,” Woods said. “So, you know, to have this option … you’re outside looking in, you’re thankful … thanks for giving the baby a chance.”
The Knoxville area has three baby box locations, and a fourth is planned for the Burlington Fire Station near Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue and Holston Drive, Woods said.
“It’s not an easy decision for anyone to make,” he said. “But … we have these boxes, and they’re putting more and more boxes out, and that is to prevent tragedies.”
Baby boxes were created to deter parents from abandoning their newborns, potentially leaving them to die. Baby boxes are temperature-controlled incubators often built into exterior walls of fire stations, police stations, and hospitals, and can be accessed from inside. At-risk mothers can safely and legally place their newborns inside. Then, the outside door locks, and mothers have time to get away before an alarm goes off, alerting first responders or hospital staff inside.
The baby is then quickly removed and sent to a hospital for a wellness check. From there, the baby is usually placed into state custody and often quickly adopted.
Under Tennessee's Safe Haven law, unharmed newborns up to 45 days old may be surrendered to baby boxes as well as in person to hospitals, fire stations, EMS providers, and police stations, according to the Safe Haven Baby Boxes organization.
Safe Haven Baby Boxes launched nine years ago in Indiana and has expanded nationwide with at least 455 locations in 25 states. More than 80 newborn infants have been surrendered to baby boxes across the United States, according to the organization.
Safe Haven Baby Boxes has a confidential National Safe Haven Hotline, 1-866-99BABY1, that provides free counseling and information about safe surrenders, including face-to-face surrenders. The organization says it has assisted with more than 200 additional infant surrenders to other safe haven locations through its hotline.
Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on X @thekat_hamilton.
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