More infants are left in this Indiana baby box than anywhere else in the country
John Moriarty is as passionate about the Carmel Fire Department’s baby box as he is about pulling a resident from a burning building.
“It is a safe, legal way to rescue a baby,” said Moriarty, the department's chief of community relations, likening the receptacle to any other life-saving tool on the truck.
But for the first three years, the drop box was in place at Station No. 345 in Home Place, it went unused except for the occasional prank by neighborhood teens, who would open it to set off the alarm.
Firefighters put an end to those hijinks by giving the culprits a tutorial on the box, stressing its serious purpose. From then on, the only shenanigans came when a litter of kittens was dropped in the receptacle.
“That was progress, I guess," said Moriarty, chief of community relations and firefighting veteran of 42 years. “And we got all of those cats adopted.”
Then in April of 2022, someone dropped off the first baby. A few days later another infant was left, and a third followed the next month.
In August, a fourth child was surrendered, making the box, installed by Safe Haven Baby Boxes, the busiest in the nation.
“On the one hand, I figured it’s good that no one needed to drop off an infant for so long,” Moriarty said. “On the other, I’m glad some people know we're here now. And I’m glad that in all that time none have been found discarded in the trash in our city.”
'What we're all about'
That first baby energized the firefighters at 10701 N. College Ave., and the department hosted a news conference to announce it. Department Chief David Haboush said the publicity may have sparked the subsequent drop-offs.
What to know about Safe Haven law Safe haven baby boxes: What to know about surrendering infants in Indiana
But Baby Box founder Monica Kelsey said there was another reason for the surge: Chief Moriarty as a Tiktok star.
“His videos are reaching people in an accessible and engaging way that wouldn’t know about the baby boxes otherwise,” Kelsey said.
Moriarty said he didn’t make the initial TikTok; Kelsey simply posted an interview she did with him about the baby box. In it, Moriarty, whose exuberant words roll over like a fast-moving tumbleweed, does a show-and-tell of the box and explains how the firefighters baked a birthday cake for the first baby.
“That started a tradition,” he said. “Now my daughter and wife pick up a cake for each baby to take a picture with the crew.”
The department also was motivated to make more substantial improvements to the baby box.
The crew placed a baby seat and changing station next to the box. Drawers filled with medical supplies are underneath. They’ve developed redundant alarm systems so that even if the fire crew is on a call others will get to the station quickly.
The department has even written a guidebook for Baby Box that is shared with other departments.
"Monica asked if she could offer this to others and we said we would be proud to have her do so,” Moriarty said.
"We were honored that someone entrusted us to make sure we took care of this baby,” Haboush said. “That is what we are all about. Taking care of human beings.”
Anonymity guaranteed
Safe Haven laws have been on the books since 1999 and every state now allows mothers to surrender their babies to firehouses, police stations and hospitals with no questions asked.
The intent is to provide mothers in crisis or lacking resources a chance to give their babies a safe home instead of doing something harmful to the child, such as abandoning the infant in a dangerous location.
Since the first Safe Haven law passed in Texas, more than 4,425 infants have been surrendered nationwide and adopted, according to the National Safe Haven Alliance.
Kelsey, an Indiana native and former firefighter whose mother gave her up at birth, installed the first baby box in Indiana in 2016 as a means to offer more anonymity than dropping babies off in person.
Safe Haven now has 170 baby boxes in 12 states, 108 in Indiana. Carmel was its seventh baby box to be installed — in 2018 — and is the only one with more than two infants dropped off. Four babies surrendered in less than 18 months is impressive in itself, Kelsey said, but it's even more so considering only 36 infants have been dropped off in the past five years nationwide at Baby Boxes.
Boxes are also located at fire stations in Beech Grove, Wayne, Decatur and White River townships, Zionsville and Brownsburg.
Traditional Safe Haven advocates, however, said the baby boxes should be considered a last resort. The safer path is for mothers to surrender their babies in person because it gives doctors, nurses, paramedics or police a chance to offer the mother services and gather medical information.
“There is an opportunity to ask about health and long-term care,” said Leah Kipley, assistant director of the National Safe Haven Alliance. “And to let them know what services are available to her.”
Kelsey said the boxes are an alternative that offer mothers who may be ashamed true anonymity and has likely led to babies being safely surrendered who wouldn’t have been otherwise.
Baby sounds alarm
Carmel placed its baby box in a firehouse near its southern border because it was the closest to busy roads and the highways that include U.S. 31 and Interstate 465, Moriarty said.
The box is on the north side of the firehouse, which faces a grassy lot rather than homes, offering mothers more privacy. The receptacle resembles an oversized package mail drop slot, opening from the outside with the pull of a handle.
The inside of the box is temperature controlled, has a bassinet and a bag for the mother to take containing instructions and maternal medical advice. The door locks when it is closed. An alarm and strobe light in the firehouse go off and alerts are sent to chiefs Haboush and Moriarty and 911. The average time the babies have been in the box is about a minute, Haboush said.
Until recently the babies were then sent to the Indiana Department of Children and Families, which placed them with a foster family for 30 to 45 days while seeking an adoptive family.
A bill passed in the last session of the Indiana legislature allows the baby to go directly to an adoption agency and skip the foster family. The baby left in Carmel in August was placed with an adoptive family within 12 hours.
The Safe Haven Association said it prefers the state’s childcare agencies take possession of the child for a period of time and oversee the adoption.
But Carmel officials said the Indiana law eliminates a level of bureaucracy, streamlines the process and gets the baby into a full-time family quicker.
The baby gets checked out at the station and then is taken to the hospital for up to a week, with Harboush, Moriarty or Kelsey visiting the baby to provide human contact.
Icing on the cake
Kesley, who is also an anti-abortion speaker, said she didn’t believe Indiana’s new laws limiting abortion motivated the jump in babies left in Carmel — mainly because the first three were dropped off before the law was passed.
The Safe Haven Association said it was too early to tell if more mothers across the nation are dropping off babies in person since the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. But calls to the agency hotline inquiring about Safe Haven Laws have jumped significantly.
“That includes a lot legislators wanting to know if they need to update the laws in their states,” Kipley said.
Carmel fire officials don’t know why the babies were abandoned or who adopts them, unless the family contacts them, which has happened with just one of babies.
A local family adopted the second baby and visited Station 345, hugging the firefighters and thanking them.
Moriarty said firefighters gave them a scrapbook with pictures of the baby and the crew and the birthday cake; they have other scrapbooks waiting if more families choose to visit and an open door policy.
“We look at the baby box as another door into the fire station,” he said.
Find a Safe Haven Baby Box to anonymously drop off an infant
See a map of locations online at https://www.shbb.org/location
Call IndyStar reporter John Tuohy at (317) 444-6418. Follow on X/Twitter and Facebook.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Why the baby box at a Carmel, Indiana, firehouse is busiest in nation
