Third Baby Left in Window of Life

A third baby has been dropped off at the “Window of Life” made available by the Nazarath Nunnery on ul. Przybyszewskiego 39. The baby boy is healthy and weights 3.6 kilograms, Gazeta Wyborcza reports. He has been taken to the local hospital for observations.

Created by the metropolitan diocese, the purpose of the Window of Life is to save unwanted infants. The window serves as an opportunity for mothers who are in desperation. Offering the option of handing over infants to the Nazarath Nunnery anonymously, the window is intended to decrease infanticide levels in Krakow. Often in dire straits, knowing they will not be able to raise their newborns sufficiently, desperate mothers have left infants in rubbish dumps and on the streets in the past. The idea for the window was to eliminate such disasters.

The window opens from the outside onto the street and there is a small crib in it for mothers to place their unwanted babies. The window became available in March last year. The baby boy left in it this Saturday is the third baby to be left anonymously. Gazeta Wyborcza reports that the nuns are expressing their thanks to the desperate mother who left the baby unharmed.

The two baby girls who were left in the past year have already found homes and been adopted. They have been placed with good families and are stable and healthy. The adoption and foster center in Krakow claims there is a long line of would-be parents waiting for the opportunity to adopt newborns. There is no lack of homes for abandoned infants. Finding a suitable family for the baby boy left on Saturday will not prove difficult. Critics of the window say however, that the program complicates the adoption process. If a mother abandons her child and does not formally renounce her parental rights, a tiresome administrative process commences. The court must assign the child a name and a surname, assign a guardian and commence an official search to find the child’s natural mother.

The abandoned infant may only be given up for adoption if its natural mother cannot be located. The process can take months. The baby boy left on Saturday was probably dropped off shortly after he was born. He will be in the hospital for a week before he is released into the hands of an official guardian.