Germany Fights Infanticide Surge With Safe Haven Baby Drops
March 27, 2007 — -- An apparent surge of infanticide across Germany has prompted some city councils to promote so-called baby-klappe, or baby-drop, centers. The reports are also spurring others to question if enough is being done about the problem.
First installed at a hospital in the northern city of Hamburg in the year 2000, the baby klappe allows women to anonymously drop off their unwanted babies to be found and cared for by hospital staff. There are now some 90 baby drop-offs across the country -- typically installed in an outside wall of a hospital, not unlike a hamburger pickup window. Some of the structures are equipped with a heated cradle and life-saving instruments, including a respirator.
The mother can leave without being seen. The moment the child is dropped off, an alarm sounds and hospital staff immediately tend to the baby's needs.
Still, recent news reports suggest that some mothers aren't getting the word. Hardly a week goes by without such headlines as "Dead Baby Found in Trash Can," "Mother Kills Infant, Baby Body Dumped on Wasteland" or even "Dead Infant Found in Freezer." Six dead babies have been found in the last two weeks alone.
A 26-year-old Hamburg woman was arrested on suspicion of killing her infant after she had given birth in her flat. The woman is alleged to have wrapped the baby in a plastic shopping bag and threw him out of a 10-story apartment building. A neighbor's dog found the bag and scratched it open.
Another woman was arrested in the northern German city of Kiel 10 days ago after police found two dead babies in her freezer. One was a stillborn a year ago; the other was a recent live birth, authorities said.
Only a week ago, a 27-year-old woman surrendered to police in a small town in eastern Germany after her newborn child was found in a blue plastic rubbish bag trapped in the reeds of a lake.
This week a 20-year-old woman in Bavaria was accused of beating her newborn baby to death minutes after she had given birth. The woman is said to have killed her baby to hide the pregnancy from her partner.
Up to 60 infants are being killed by their mothers every year in Germany, and the figure might well have been higher if not for the baby drops. In Hamburg alone some 22 babies have been dropped off at hospital since the program began five years ago.
"All these women can think of is to avoid trouble with their partners or with their parents. Some women have greater fear of losing their partners than losing their child. They usually hide the pregnancy until it is too late, and when the baby arrives, they panic and the only thing they can think of is how to get rid of it," German author Annegret Wiese wrote in her book "When Mothers Kill."
The baby-drop campaign has also led to a backlash, with some church representatives arguing the effort could actively encourage mothers to "dump" their children.
Regula Bott, a member of an anti-baby-klappe group, argues that the unwanted children lose their identity and their right to find out who their mother is. "They're dropped off as no-name babies, or anonymous babies. So once they are handed off, these babies are almost immediately up for adoption, and they'll never ever be able to trace their roots."
Professor Anke Rohde, a psychiatrist at the Medical University Clinic in Bonn, said the baby drops are no cure-all. "This may be one way to deal with the problem, but certainly can't be the only way," she told ABCNEWS.com. "Mothers caught in such a horrific situation are completely stressed out -- they can't even think straight. The risk is that because of that stressful situation they'll ignore or simply overlook the possibility to drop off their babies. More needs to be done in order to help those women."