By Frank Stirk

ADOPTION advocates are upset that St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver did not consult them before it gave the green light to Angel’s Cradle, a safe place where mothers in distress can drop off their newborn babies with no fear of being found out.

“It might sound like a great idea, because you hear about babies being abandoned at a bus stop or worse. But this is just too final,” said Marnie Tetz, president of the Forget Me Not Family Society in Surrey. “Once the baby is dropped off there, mom is gone.”

Angel’s Cradle is an outside door the size of a small window in an alcove near the emergency department entrance. Behind the door is a bassinette. Thirty seconds after a baby is left in it, an alarm goes off at a nursing station.

Following a medical assessment and any necessary treatment, the infant is placed in the care of B.C.’s Ministry of Children and Family Development.

People who use the drop-off, which opened May 3, are promised total anonymity. Staff will not to try to identify them – the door cannot be seen by security cameras – and the Vancouver Police Department has promised not to investigate.

Dr. Geoffrey Cundiff, head of St. Paul’s obstetrics and gynecology department, came up with the idea as part of a larger campaign to reduce the incidence of babies being found abandoned in unsafe conditions.

“There are many programs to assist pregnant women, and women who have new children. All of our literature – even the door to the cradle itself – has contact numbers to access those available resources,” he said.

“Our hope is that this is a mechanism for us to reach women in crisis and make them aware of other alternatives – with this as a last resort.”

Funding for Angel’s Cradle was provided by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Vancouver, in the form of a one-time-only $5,000 grant from its Project Advance – which supports social programs in the community.

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Tetz said she doubts most women who contemplate abandoning their baby would be thinking clearly enough to even know about Angel’s Cradle, let alone see it as an option. “They’re even in denial about being pregnant,” she said.

Tetz is especially concerned that promising blanket anonymity denies children any chance of ever discovering anything about their family of origin, their genealogy, and if they might even have some hereditary medical condition. For many, the result can often be a devastating identity crisis.

“I know of adopted people that wished their mother had had an abortion rather than give birth to them,” Tetz said.

“That’s how messed up their life has been. And some of them were adopted into wonderful families.”

Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, the independent Representative for Children and Youth in B.C., strongly commends St. Paul’s for wanting to help abandoned newborns.

But she worries Angel’s Cradle could end up endangering the mothers as well.

“They may have had a birth without any medical support, which is very high-risk; or they may have some very serious mental health issues,” she said.

“And they may become stable in six months and be completely different.”

Turpel-Lafond is also concerned that the anonymity rules would deny the father or other relatives the option of becoming the child’s guardian.

“It is without a doubt most ideal for a baby to be put up for adoption with a medical history, a family history,” said Cundiff.

“But we feel that it is preferable to have the baby in a safe location without information than abandoned in the community. It’s a pragmatic approach to really trying to balance reality, I guess.”

June 2010