Livingston Safe Haven Baby Box Coming

Livingston set to receive its own Safe Haven Baby Box to be installed at the Public Safety Building.

Advocate LaVerne Craig said they hope to provide any local women in crisis with a safe method to give up their baby while keeping themselves anonymous. Craig said they are almost done working with the city to finish the contract they need to get the box.

“Then once that happens we will order the box and it will take four to six weeks before it’s delivered to Livingston,” Craig said. “Then we will have it paid, installed, and then a blessing of the box. So we’re probably talking about probably end of the year or first of the year.”

Craig said the city was identified by a donor who is looking to equip small towns with their own baby boxes. Craig said babies are abandoned by mothers at all socioeconomic levels but the issue is more prevalent in rural areas.

“We do not want babies in dumpsters or trash cans or wherever or thrown out on the side of the road,” Craig said. “And this has happened frequently and it has happened in the state of Tennessee.”

Craig said that women are only allowed to use these boxes for babies fourteen days old or younger according to Tennessee law.

“These are all basically newborn babies and so it’s very important to have this in case there’s a mother in crisis and she needs a place to take her baby,” Craig said.

Craig said they take a lot of input from local governments when deciding exactly where each box will go.

“We figure they know their town better or city better and they know what location the baby box would need to be in,” Craig said.

Craig said mothers often do not want to walk up to a facility like a fire department to drop off a baby because they will have to come face-to-face with other people.

“We will hope that if a woman or a young lady is ever in any kind of crisis where she feels that she is unable to take care of a baby that she will come and put her baby in that box,” Craig said. “And it will be immediately taken in and it will be adopted by a family that has been waiting for a baby for a long time and will have a wonderful life.”