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The Edgewood Town Council has unanimously approved installing a baby box at the fire department. If details are worked out, and it’s completed, it would be the first in Madison County, just as the Hoosier state was the first to have baby boxes in the United States.

The purpose is to provide a safe and discreet way for a parent or parents to surrender a child they are unable or unwilling to care for.

The baby box is usually built into a wall of a fire station or hospital. It is accessible from outside the building, and the exterior door locks once a baby has been placed inside. The box is temperature-controlled for the baby’s safety, and the door triggers a silent alarm that alerts staff inside the building.

The baby box actually has a long history. In the 12th century BCE, Pope Innocent III was alarmed by the number of drowned infants found in the Tiber River and decreed that baby hatches should be installed in homes so that women could surrender their babies in secret.

These early versions of baby boxes were more like small revolving doors built into a wall. A bell was available to ring to alert occupants that a baby had been placed in the box.

Nowadays it is not uncommon to hear horrific stories of dead infants found abandoned in garbage cans, dumpsters or toilets.

The website for Safe Haven, a nonprofit that builds baby boxes, says that over 120 babies have been saved through these devices since 2016.

We can barely imagine the pain and desperation of being a young mother with nowhere to turn. The baby box provides a way for the child to be cared for and doesn’t penalize the parent.

We can hope the baby box never needs to be used, but it is better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.

In making this decision, the Edgewood Town Council has made Madison County safer for our most vulnerable population.

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