THE WOODLANDS, Texas — The Woodlands wants to become the first city in Southeast Texas to install Safe Haven Baby Boxes.
The baby boxes allow a parent in crisis to surrender her newborn safely and anonymously under the state’s Safe Haven law, also called the Baby Moses Law. The law allows babies 60 days old or younger to be dropped off with an employee at a hospital or fire station.
The Woodlands was motivated to add the boxes after an urn with a fetus was found in a pond at Copper Sage Park. Investigators later determined it was a miscarriage and not a crime.
“It really lit more of a fire under us,” The Woodlands Township Board Director Dr. Shelley Sekula-Gibbs said. “What can we do for mothers in crisis who don’t have options, that’s a better choice or good choice for their newborn?”
Since discussions started in April, several tragedies followed.
“There was a literal explosion of abandonments in Harris County," Sekula-Gibbs said.
In Harris County and the Houston area, there were at least six reported cases of abandoned newborns over the summer. Two of those cases were fatal, including one baby who was discovered in a garbage truck.
The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services says if a child is found alone somewhere, they do get involved in such cases.
Six cases of abandonment is not necessarily an alarming number, according to a DFPS spokesperson, but it was unusual that they happened so close together.
“Even just one can be alarming. But it’s pretty much on track with data we’ve had over the years. It’s the matter of it happened in a very short timespan,” Tiffani Butler with DFPS said. “We usually might have eight or nine over a year. With it happening that quickly back to back, it is alarming."
According to DFPS data, 31 cases of surrendered children were reported since the 2020 fiscal year in Region 6, which includes Harris, Montgomery and 11 other counties. 20 of those children were classified as abandonment, 11 were classified as Baby Moses cases.
The Woodlands has allocated $22,000 in its budget to lease and install the Safe Haven Baby Box at one of its fire stations.
Sekula-Gibbs said other cities around the country that are similar in size, economic and social makeup had success with the baby boxes.
“[Mothers] want to be anonymous, they want to be safe whenever they come here, often in the middle of the night, to relinquish their newborn, we can provide that,” she said.
They hope to install the baby box by 2025. Information about the safe haven law can be found in English and Spanish on the DFPS website.