The Ones Who Never Make It to the Cradle

Waves wash a baby’s body to shore in Malibu. A woman near Tustin discovers a newborn child, still alive, in a small cardboard box among bushes outside her front door. A tiny body is found in a trash bin in Santa Ana.

And on. And on.

We do not know their stories. We know only that these babies were not unwanted, for there are many who would eagerly adopt them and give them homes. But the journey of many children ends before they arrive in arms waiting to cradle them. And keep them.

The Baby Anthony Program at the St. Francis Medical Center in Lynwood will take a baby, no questions asked, from a mother who for whatever reason is planning to abandon a child.

“All she has to do is say, ‘I’m leaving my baby on Third and whatever street and we say, ‘Fine, we’ll pick up the baby,’ ” says Mary Ann Morrison, vice president of clinical services at St. Francis. “Everything is confidential. No names asked, nothing. Our ambulance will go anywhere to pick up a baby. We have no boundaries.”

If the parent wants counseling, it is offered for free. If adoption is requested, it is arranged through an outside agency.

Founded in 1992, it is the first program of its kind in the country, Morrison says, and plans are being made to implement it at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank. Yet, since the program was founded, not one abandoned baby has been brought in--as many as 30 are found abandoned each year in Los Angeles County, says Schuyler Sprowles, information director for the county Department of Children and Family Services. The most recent occurred last week when a 1-year-old girl washed ashore in Malibu.

“We read about these babies in the newspaper and think if only someone would have called us,” Morrison says.

“I have numbers of awaiting families who would gladly and eagerly adopt each and every one of these children,” says David Ballard, executive director of Holy Family Services, a nondenominational, nonsectarian adoption and foster care agency with offices in Orange County and Pasadena.

“There would be no question whatsoever about our ability to find homes for these children. And that is a tragedy.”

Ideally, these agencies would love to have as much background information as possible on these children, but the primary concern is always to save the life of the child.

The question lingers: If a child’s journey to a loving home is so easily made, why then are babies still washing ashore?

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If it takes a village to raise a child, the village must try to understand the mind-set that moves people to abandon or kill their young, experts say.

“I’ve worked a few of these cases when I worked in juvenile justice,” says Ballard. “I worked with kids who, for example, gave birth in a bathroom and tossed the baby out the window. There was--and it can be real or perceived--a fear of how the family would respond, a fear of being shunned or stigmatized by people.”

Adds Lydia Durbin, a former board member of the National Assn. of Social Workers and program manager at a foster care and adoption agency in Wilmington, Del., “We’re not talking about people who are able to be rational.

“They might be mentally ill, they might be alcohol or drug addicted. They might be so hurt emotionally and socially that they see no hope for themselves. In some cases, the desperation can even mean they feel the world is a bad enough place that they wouldn’t want a child to continue to live in it. That’s the level of hopelessness or despair that we’re often talking about here, the pain of a person who would do such a thing.”

Many young parents find themselves trapped between conflicting social messages, Durbin says.

“One says that if you become pregnant, it is your personal responsibility to somehow figure out how to manage. There is a theme of that going through our political and social climate right now of individual responsibility that says it’s not a community or the society’s responsibility to help you out.”

Another social pressure is the one that says it is wrong to “give away your own flesh and blood.”

“We’ve backed people into a corner. People just can’t figure it out and, in their hopelessness and despair, they take this very dramatic step,” Durbin says.

Ballard says the issue of abandoned babies transcends the politically charged debate over abortion.

“We’re talking about newborns and infants that should not be anywhere near a political discussion,” he says. “These are human beings with a right to life that they cannot themselves defend, and it is incumbent upon us to do whatever is necessary to take whatever steps can be taken to ensure that a child who is 2 days old does not get discarded.”

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There are ways that these young lives can be saved, not only from abandonment but from abuse, says Deanne Tilton, executive director of the Los Angeles County Inter-Agency Council on Child Abuse and Neglect. It will take a village.

“It will not be exclusively through the official system. It will require the involvement of friends, family and neighbors willing to become involved, willing to make a call, willing to offer support.”

It will require increased awareness of choices and resources. “We need school programs that emphasize alternatives to getting pregnant and keeping babies that are unwanted, certainly messages that if you are exasperated with a child to the point of not wanting the child any longer, there are a lot of families that would want to adopt the child.”

But most parents or caretakers who kill their children are not teenagers, Tilton says. They are in their 20s or early 30s. In addition to school programs, expanded home visitation programs would help parents of preschool age children and also help breach the isolation that many children face.

“The child doesn’t go to school, the child doesn’t play with other kids, the child can’t run away, the child can’t dial 911, can’t scream loud enough. And you have isolated neighborhoods, isolated apartment buildings. You have no guarantee that any child of preschool age will ever be seen outside the home from the time they’re born until their autopsies.”

About 2,000 children are murdered across the country each year by parents or caretakers, usually in their 20s or 30s, says Tilton, who chaired the U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect for two years. Additionally, 18,000 children are permanently disabled, while 572,000 are seriously injured.

These are the cases that are known. There is no way to know how many children are actually killed, Tilton says. It is an ominous thought: What about the babies that go unnoticed in dumpsters, the ones who do not wash ashore?

“Because of the anonymity of children and the isolation and the lack of accountability of their care, we can only surmise that we’re not finding many of these cases,” Tilton says. “In my view, we’re not finding most of them.”

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Where to Call

* Baby Anthony Program at St. Francis Medical Center: (800) 606-2229

* Holy Family Services: (800) 464-2367

* Los Angeles County Department of the Children and Family Services Child Abuse Hotline: (800) 540-4000