Babyboxes save 22 children in Czech Republic this year

Prague - A total of 22 children were found in the "babybox" hatches in the Czech Republic in 2011, and 62 babies have been saved in them since 2005 when the first hatch was installed, according to statistics of the Statim Babybox association for abandoned children.

Forty-seven babyboxes operate in the country, while six new were added to the system this year.

Most Czechs consider the hatches beneficial, but the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child expressed a serious concern about this practice this year.

The U.N. said the hatches violated the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and it recommended that they be abolished.

The committee said the hatches violated five articles of the convention, such as children's right to life, name and nationality.

On the contrary, Babybox association head Ludvik Hess, the project´s initiator, points out that the hatches save babies´ lives.

Hess told CTK previously that the U.N. criticism was a misunderstanding as the convention´s fundamental idea is to protect children, which babyboxes do.

A baby hatch is an incubator in which as woman may anonymously leave her unwanted newborn baby without threatening the baby's life or health. Such an act is legal under Czech law and the mother in need does not face any punishment for it.

Health care personnel in the respective hospital receives a signal from the "full" box and can look after the baby immediately.

The first babybox in the Czech Republic was installed in Prague in 2005.

Since then another 46 have been gradually established in the country, and more are planned. The highest number of baby hatches is in Prague and its surroundings.

So far 37 girls and 25 boys have been found in the hatches.

The project organisers are also striving for the babies abandoned in the hatches to be placed in foster families and not in institutional care.

A new family for one of such babies was found in a record short time of four days.

Hess also said he would like the number of hatches to increase to 70 and that they should be available in all districts.

The 48th baby hatch is to start operating in the Regional Hospital in Karlovy vary, west Bohemia, as from February 2012.

According to a poll conducted by the STEM/MARK agency, 96 percent of Czechs in productive age agree with the practice of baby hatches, while only one in 100 rejects them.

Most of the polled highlight the advantages of babyboxes, saying they can save children´s lives and give them a chance of a better future.

One in 20 says the number of cases of killing newborn babies has decreased thanks to babyboxes.

However, some experts disagree with the use of baby hatches, arguing that it is a crime to abandon a baby. They say such children do not know their identity and biological parents.

Apart from the Czech Republic, babyboxes operate also in the neighbouring Austria, Germany and Slovakia as well as in Hungary and Switzerland.

The number of new babyboxes and babies found in them

Source: Babybox association for abandoned children Author: CTK
www.ctk.cz

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