Improved signage marks safe havens for abandoned newborns

State and local officials showed off new signage Tuesday that's part of an effort to heighten parental awareness of havens where they can leave a baby they feel they can't keep without fear of prosecution and with knowledge the infant will be cared for.

It's going up at safe havens across the state as part of amendments adopted last year to the 2001 Abandoned Newborn Infant Protection Act, officials with the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, the Save Abandoned Babies Foundation and the village of Arlington Heights said at a press conference outside fire department headquarters.

Arlington Heights Village President Arlene Mulder was at the press conference and said all police and fire stations in the village will have the new signs.

"And it's not just about the signs. These firefighters have the emergency kits and training they need to help babies," Mulder said.

Safe havens include all hospitals, staffed police stations, staffed fire stations and emergency medical care facilities.

A parent who cannot care for a newborn infant up to 7 days old can anonymously relinquish the unharmed baby to a staff member at labeled locations.

The law is intended to give parents in crisis a safe option in their babies' first days of life, which is when infants are most at risk of being killed or abandoned illegally.

"We know that's when babies are most at risk of being killed or abandoned illegally," Ric Jais, of the Save the Babies Foundation, said at a separate news conference on the same topic in Aurora. "Hopefully the new signs will get people's attention. They'll tell a friend, talk about it and might just save a life."

About half of the 90 babies abandoned since the act was passed were legally relinquished to safe havens. For more information visit www.saveabandonedbabies.org.