Hobbs News-Sun<\/em> reported<\/a>. Those changes allowed for the surrendering of infants, 90 days or less in age, to be surrendered via a \u201csafety device\u201d or \u201cbaby box\u201d without parental fear of criminal prosecution.<\/p>\nHobbs Fire Chief Barry Young said the Safe Haven baby box is a much needed asset for Hobbs and surrounding areas.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe whole baby box concept really hit home here locally when we had the incident with the baby thrown in the dumpster,\u201d Young said. \u201cThere was a lot of discussion as to what can be done on the part of the city and prevent it from happening again. Prior to that incident, I don\u2019t know of any incidents as such, especially in my 20 year career.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy opinion is, if it can save one baby, it\u2019s definitely worth the cost.\u201d<\/p>\n
New Mexico Sen. David Gallegos, R-Eunice, agrees.<\/p>\n
According to Gallegos, who has been an advocate of the baby box since \u201cBaby Sal\u201d was found in the dumpster. While it has been a slow, uphill climb, he said, cities across New Mexico are taking steps in the right direction to continue to offer more options to mothers who feel they have no other choice than to give up their child.<\/p>\n
\u201cLoving and Carlsbad have both contacted me about having a box installed in their cities,\u201d Gallegos said. \u201cIn order for a city to have a box, they have to have a 24-hour fire station so we may end up with about 30 of these boxes statewide. The thought is, if we have at least one per county in the state, then we can offer more options to these women.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis next year, I intend to make adjustments because the bill still leaves some liability with the mother and we want to make sure, in the overall scheme, when the child is placed in the box, there is no liability for the mother. We also want to make sure that if the grandparents or father want the child, they have to the right to go and do a DNA test to be able to get the child back from CYFD. This is the first step and I\u2019m really proud of Hobbs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Young said the approval on Monday night\u2019s consent agenda is only the first step in the process. It allows the city to establish an account where it can start funneling money from donations. There also will be an annual $300 service fee for the company that provides the box.<\/p>\n
Young said the process isn\u2019t as simple as some might believe.<\/p>\n
According to the consent agenda, $18,500 must be raised for the installation and fees of the box. Of that, $11,000 is the initial fee for the box itself.<\/p>\n
Gallegos said a portion of the cost to the city has been pledged to be covered by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, who offered in February to cover the cost of five baby boxes to be placed around the state, with Hobbs following the first in Espanola.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis will give women options that they didn\u2019t have before. This is an anonymous option that has never been given to women in the country before,\u201d Safe Haven Baby Box founder Monica Kelsey told the News-Sun<\/em>. \u201cIt is pivotal to give women options. We can prevent those incidents from happening like the case that happened in January. It\u2019s sad that it took that case to provide an option for the community there. I am thankful that baby survived and they are moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\nKelsey said the company already has 98 baby boxes in five states, with New Mexico being the sixth.<\/p>\n
In Indiana, where Kelsey is from, two to three babies a year were found dead before installing the boxes. After the installation, zero infants have been found dead, and a record number of babies have been recovered in the boxes, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve literally changed the tide. We\u2019ve turned it around in Indiana and Arkansas. We\u2019ve had a total of 14 babies (recovered) in the last three years in our boxes and we\u2019ve had 115 women surrender at fire stations,\u201d said Kelsey. \u201cOur program doesn\u2019t just revolve around women going to boxes, it revolves around giving women options.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve had almost 130 babies, moms and dads, come through our program in a little under three years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cobb agrees a baby box will provide options for people struggling with how to handle an unwanted newborn.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis box indicates that we (Hobbs) care about children and we also care about the people that are struggling with some of the issues related to having children and not knowing what to do. We hope that this gives them an opportunity to feel like they can take the child and put it in a safe environment and not make poor decisions,\u201d Cobb said.<\/p>\n
According to Kelsey, after the money is raised and the contract is signed, it will take about two to three months to build, deliver and install a box.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
HOBBS, N.M. \u2013 Hobbs city commissioners took a step toward saving the lives of unwanted newborns at a recent meeting by voting to install a baby box in the southeastern New Mexico community. The vote was spurred by the case of Alexis Avila, who was caught on surveillance camera in early January throwing her infant […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[815,138],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-39276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-associated-press-new-mexico","tag-new-mexico"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39276\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39276"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=39276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}