Police Seek Mother of Baby Found in Shopping Bag

Police were trying Wednesday to find the mother of a newborn girl who was abandoned and left in a plastic shopping bag.

The baby was discovered about 5 p.m. Tuesday after her crying drew the attention of a group of boys who had been playing nearby.

Eduardo Cuellar, 7, called for his mother. “There’s a baby here!” he yelled.

His mother did not believe him at first. “I thought she was a doll,” Maria Cuellar said.

The baby was found wrapped in a towel and placed in a plastic bag that had been tied shut. “It was so small,” Cuellar said.

Cuellar took the baby into her arms as her daughter Nora, 12, called 911. With advice from the emergency operator, Nora helped her mother wrap the baby in a blanket.

“I just held her and touched her cheek,” Cuellar said. “I wanted to cry. I was scared that the baby was going to die.”

The newborn was taken to Children’s Hospital of Orange, where she was in very good condition Wednesday, hospital officials said.

The baby spent part of the morning in the arms of volunteer Mary Collier of Irvine. “She’s precious, and she’s beautiful,” Collier said.

After she is released from the hospital, the baby girl will be turned over to Orange County’s social services agency.

Police said they were still searching for the infant’s mother, who could be charged with child abandonment and endangerment. They spent Tuesday night and Wednesday using search dogs in an unsuccessful attempt to determine where the baby had come from.

“The important thing is that we find the mother so we can learn what circumstances forced her to abandon her child,” said Police Lt. Robert Helton. “She may need our assistance.”

Child abandonment is rare in Orange County. The county’s social services agency dealt with no such cases in all of 1999, and only one in 1998.

However, a survey by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services indicates that abandonments are increasing. Nationwide, there were 108 newborns abandoned in public places in 1998. In 1991, there were 65.

Bills introduced recently by state Sen. Jim Brulte (R-Rancho Cucamonga) and Assemblyman Ken Maddox (R-Garden Grove) would allow mothers with unwanted babies up to 30 days old to leave them at county hospital emergency rooms, police or fire stations or child protective agencies without threat of prosecution.