Parramatta Council to explore rolling out safe haven baby boxes for vulnerable parents

Western Sydney could be the first place in Australia to provide safe baby drop off boxes, just months after a woman abandoned a newborn in Blacktown. See what it means here.

Parramatta could be the first place in Australia to install safe haven baby boxes and provide a lifeline to vulnerable parents struggling to care for their infants who “might die” under their wing.

During a Monday night meeting, Parramatta councilllor and mum Ange Humphries said the anonymous practice, which is common in the US and Europe with “no legalities involved”, would allow parents to surrender a child up to 12 months old and who did not want to give their babies up to authorities.

Under the plan, the boxes would be installed outside council buildings in a “discreet but accessible” location.

Once open, the door triggers a silent alarm to emergency services to let them know an infant needs to be collected.

The box, which contains packages information to health services for parents, then shuts and cannot be opened until emergency services arrive up to 15 minutes later.

The Blacktown home where a newborn baby was abandoned. The infant will now be reunited with her mum. Picture: Jeremy Piper

Cr Humphries hopes the council can be the first to show “compassion and humility’’ and provide the service to help “our most vulnerable people at their most difficult time’’.

“Having had a child myself, with the support of family and friends, and great doctors and great people around me, and obviously lots of support services, I struggled – and I was 30 years of age - and it was a much planned and much-wanted baby,’’ she said.

Ange Humphries wants Parramatta Council to look into providing baby boxes.

An example of a safe baby box.

“I can’t imagine the circumstances for a young person, or an older person, or a disabled person, or perhaps somebody who does have a substance abuse problem, somebody who doesn’t know who the father is, somebody who knows they’re going to be going to a domestic violence situation, somebody who doesn’t have money to pay for formula, to pay for their child and that baby will die in their care.’’

She said during the six months she worked in Florida, 16 babies had been surrendered in baby boxes but it was not until a 35-year-old woman abandoned her newborn in a Blacktown backyard in April that Cr Humphries thought of introducing boxes locally.

“This sounds something that has nothing to do with local government but I think it’s at the heart of local government – we’re actually small enough yet big enough to pull off something like this,’’ she said.

“This is an opportunity where we can come together and we can avert a crisis before it actually happens – before we find a child in the dumpster, at the bottom of the river, left at the park to die or perhaps even some other traumatic circumstances.’’

Like the Blacktown baby, Cr Humphries said in most cases, babies were reunited with their birth parents or found homes.

The council unanimously agreed to prepare a report that looks into rolling boxes out.