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A newborn baby boy was left at a hospital in Alliance, Neb., Monday evening, making him the first to be dropped off under the state’s new, narrowed-down safe haven law, the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services announced Tuesday.
The baby is in HHS care and will be placed in a foster home, HHS Chief Executive Officer Kerry Winterer said. The Box Butte County Attorney has no plans to file abuse or neglect charges because of the law that went into effect in November 2008.
No person can be prosecuted for leaving a child 30 days old or younger with an employee at a state-licensed hospital.
State health officials and local authorities asked the public for help in identifying the boy, left by a relative at Box Butte General Hospital, Winterer said.
“It’s important to gather information like family medical history to meet this child’s current and future needs,” he said.
Officials asked that anyone with information call the HHS office in Gering at 308-436-6559, the Box Butte County Sheriff’s Office at 308-762-6464, the Alliance Police Department at 308-762-4955 or the Nebraska State Patrol at 308-632-1211.
The State of Nebraska garnered national and international attention with its original safe haven law, which contained no age limit. People left behind dozens of children at hospitals. None of the 35 children abandoned under the law was an infant. Most were teenagers or preteens. Some people traveled from other states to give up their children.
The Nebraska Legislature met in a special session to revise the law to cover only newborns.
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