For nearly a decade, Safe Haven Baby Boxes have operated in multiple states but they're still relatively new in some areas.
The baby boxes allow a parent who wants to surrender their baby to leave their newborn in a temperature-regulated deposit box, typically located at a firehouse.
The first Safe Haven Baby Box was installed in Woodburn, Indiana, in 2016. Seven years later, the organization has 191 baby boxes in 14 states and are expanding into their fifteenth state -- Alabama.
What is a Safe Haven baby box?
Monica Kelsey, founder and CEO of Safe Haven Baby Boxes, describes their baby box program as an "extension" of safe haven laws, a version of which exists in all 50 states, and which allows for the safe surrender of newborns in a protected environment.
"For the last 22 years, women can walk into fire stations or hospitals, hand their newborn child to one of the workers there, turn around and walk away. This allows that same process to continue but for a parent to do it anonymously," Kelsey explained to "Good Morning America."
What is the purpose of a Safe Haven Baby Box?
Instead of abandoning or leaving a newborn at the doorstep or outside of a designated safe haven location, a parent who chooses to surrender their baby can place the baby in a temperature-regulated Safe Haven Baby Box.
Safe Haven Baby Boxes are typically found at a fire station and in Arizona, there are also locations at hospitals.
"It's so important to have an anonymous surrender as an option. We're not telling every parent to use it. We're saying this is there if you need it. We would rather you walk in and hand the child to a person but if you can't do that, here's a box," Kelsey said.
How does a Safe Haven Baby Box work?
"Once it's installed and it's operational, the box actually calls 911 on its own," Kelsey explained. "The door actually locks and they walk away knowing that this child is going to be picked up in an average of about two minutes."
"The fire station, when they get a baby, it goes to the hospital and then gets transferred either to an adoption agency or to the Department of Child Services," Kelsey added.
Kelsey, a retired firefighter and medic, told "GMA" she was inspired by her own personal history to start Safe Haven Baby Boxes. The idea took shape she said when she saw a baby safe in Cape Town, South Africa, and then learned about newborns who had died after being left outside of safe haven locations in the U.S.
"I almost feel guilty for saying this because how blessed am I that I was abandoned as an infant and now I'm saving abandoned children," Kelsey said.
"Getting to meet my biological mother when I was 37 years old gave me the empathy that I needed to be able to work with these moms," the 50-year-old CEO added. "The best part of my job is knowing that I'm helping these moms who have made a good decision, even if it's not the decision I would have made. This is their decision to make."
According to Kelsey, 180 babies have been assisted through their program.
