BOISE — Gov. Brad Little last week signed the amended Safe Haven Act that will allow Safe Haven sites to use newborn safety devices, known as baby boxes.

These transfer devices assist parents to surrender their baby anonymously and safely. The amended law will take effect on July 1, making Idaho the 16th state to legalize baby boxes.

Celebrating the signing was the bill’s sponsor state Sen. Julie VanOrden, R-Pingree, and the Idaho House floor sponsor, Rep. Marco Erickson, R-Idaho Falls. Also in attendance were representatives from Blackfoot’s Grove Creek Medical Center who brought the need for the amendment to VanOrden’s attention a year ago.

A baby box is an infant friendly holding space installed in an outside wall of a designated Safe Haven facility such as a hospital, birthing center or fire department. These are locations that have medical personnel on duty 24/7.

When a parent places their baby in the temperature controlled and ventilated inner box and closes the outside door, an alarm sounds in the facility to alert staff there is a baby waiting. Within minutes the infant is retrieved.

According to Idaho law, a baby that is left in the box must be 30 days old or younger. When that is the case, no child abandonment charges will be brought against the parents and the facility won’t seek the parents’ identities or reveal them if their names are known. Other states have older age limits, ranging up to a year old.

According to Hailey Dahle, an OB tech and bereavement counselor at Grove Creek Medical Center, it is a delicate balance between the best age limit for the children to be separated from their parents and giving the parents enough time to find a way to be parents or be sure they cannot do so. For many 30 days is too short and 60-90 days is a more reasonable upper range without unduly harming the child.

Idaho’s early age limit doesn’t protect older babies who are still at risk of being abandoned unsafely in doorways and alleys because parents are afraid of being arrested for abandonment. Could increasing the age limit be a future refinement of the Safe Haven Act?

After a month of custodial care of a baby placed in a baby box, during which time authorities are searching databases to be sure the baby isn’t a missing child, a judge will sever the birth parents’ legal ties and the baby is cleared for adoption. The month’s grace period is also a time when parents can reclaim their baby, after first proving their parentage and their capacity to be a parent to the satisfaction of the court — not an easy task.

Also celebrating the bill’s signing was Terri Marcroft, the founder and executive director of Unplanned Good Inc. She is working with VanOrden and Erickson on several adoption bills this legislative session. Their bills — SB 1308 aimed at educating youth about the adoption option and SB 1280 that will allow adoptions by out of state caretakers who have already been caring for an abused or neglected child — have passed both houses and are now awaiting the governor’s signature.

Since nearly all baby box babies will be adopted, Marcroft attended the signing to represent the next step in the surrendered baby’s new life.