Frederic P Miller

Baby Hatch Frederic P Miller

Publisher Marketing: Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. A baby hatch is a place where mothers can bring their babies, usually newborn, and leave them anonymously in a safe place to be found and cared for. This kind of arrangement was common in mediaeval times and in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when the device was known as a foundling wheel. Foundling wheels were taken out of use in the late 1800s but a modern form, the baby hatch, began to be introduced again from 1952 and since 2000 has come into use in many countries, notably in Germany where there are around 80 hatches and in Pakistan where there are over 300 today. The hatches are usually in hospitals or social centres and consist of a door or flap in an outside wall which opens to reveal a soft bed, heated or at least insulated. Sensors in the bed alert carers when a baby has been put in it so that they can come and take care of the child. In Germany, babies are first cared for eight weeks during which the mother can return and claim her child without any legal repercussions. If this does not happen, after eight weeks the child is put up for adoption.