Connecticut lawmakers recognized the fourth annual Safe Haven Awareness Day on Thursday to raise awareness about a law to prevent unsafe infant abandonment.
The state’s Safe Haven law allows a parent to leave their baby with an employee at any hospital emergency room during regular business hours in Connecticut, as long as the baby is no more than 30-days-old.
Under the law, the parents won’t be arrested for abandonment.
Pamela Sawyer, a former state representative and a member of the Safe Havens Working Group, believes the law helps spread the message across the state.
“So the outreach is there now to be able to capture the fragile individuals who are in great distress that need to know what the law is.”
Sawyer also says that she is hopeful that schools are able to reach out to communities that aren’t aware of the law.
The Connecticut Department of Children and Families says 35 babies have been dropped off at hospitals since 2000.
DCF Commissioner Vanessa Dorantes says the most recent was in 2018.
The law is intended to prevent neonaticide – when a parent abandons a baby to die after its birth.
