Safe haven - drop off

HONESDALE — “Hush little baby, we won’t say a word.” That’s on a poster above a crib outside the Wayne Memorial Hospital Emergency Department (ED) where someone can leave a baby less than 28 days old for care—no questions asked unless the baby appears to have been harmed or a victim of child abuse. A button alerts the ED staff to a baby outside. Pennsylvania’s Newborn Protection Act encourages placing a baby in a safe place. After a medical exam, the baby is delivered to Children & Youth Services, which defines abandonment as “A condition associated with a child’s removal from home and contact with the foster care system, the child has been left alone or with others, caretaker did not return or make whereabouts known.” In 2005, according to the agency, 18 infants 28 days or younger were placed in foster care statewide as a result of abandonment.