Someone put a newborn baby girl in a baby box at a hospital in Znojmo on Tuesday evening. The baby is fine, and she will be named Květuše. This is the first baby in the baby box this year and the first baby in this box, which has been operating in Znojmo since March 2015.
“She is about two days old and is wearing a T-shirt probably left by her mother; otherwise, she is naked. She is smaller, up to three kilos, but healthy to look at,” Hess said, referring to information from Znojmo pediatrician Katerina Wojnarová.
So far, 247 babies have been placed in baby boxes in the Czech Republic, including 135 girls. The last baby to be taken from a baby box was a little girl in a box at the Prague 6 town hall last October.
There are 84 baby boxes in the Czech Republic. The first one was opened in Prague’s Hloubětín in June 2005 and moved to the Vinohrady hospital in December 2019. It is also the most used, with 30 babies ending up there so far. According to the project’s website statistics, no one has used more than 20 baby boxes. The box with the number 85 will be opened on March 29 at the Agel Šternberk Hospital, Hess said. Some hospitals are also replacing the original boxes with newer ones.
The baby boxes are meant to prevent threats to the health and lives of babies from being put down. When someone puts a baby in one, heating, ventilation, and, with a slight delay, an alarm is activated to alert health facility staff.
The boxes are positioned, so people do not worry about being surprised while putting their baby down. But baby boxes have critics who say they contravene some articles of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, such as the right to a name, identity, nationality, and the right to know one’s parents.