Orlando police are looking for a newborn girl. The search started after a placenta was found in the parking lot of an Orlando apartment complex.
A nonprofit tracking abandoned babies finds fewer of them are being left in unsafe places.
Florida’s Safe Haven law allows women with babies up to seven days old to drop them off at fire stations, emergency rooms, or any emergency medical service provider anonymously with no questions asked.
The nonprofit Safe Haven for Newborns finds that since the law passed in 2000, 236 newborns have been left at safe haven locations. Fifty-four babies were left in unsafe places and of those 54, 31 did not survive.
The group’s statistics show that no baby was left in an unsafe place last year, and only one was left in 2014.
The group says women across the state know about the Safe Haven law, and they receive scores of calls from pregnant women and new mothers every month.
Central Florida Statistics
Orange County: 15 left at a safe haven, 4 left at an unsafe place
Seminole County: 10 left at a safe haven, 1 left at an unsafe place
Lake County: 4 left at a safe haven, 0 left at an unsafe place
Brevard County: 4 left at a safe haven, 2 left at an unsafe place
Volusia County: 7 left at a safe haven, 2 left at an unsafe place
Source: Safe Haven for Newborns