When the alarm sounds at Jikei hospital in southern Japan, nurses race down a spiral staircase. Their mission: to rescue an infant left in the country’s only baby hatch.
For 15 years, the clinic has been the only place in Japan where a child can be anonymously and safely abandoned.
The pioneering hospital in the Kumamoto region also offers a 24-hour pregnancy support hotline and the country’s only “confidential birth” program.
Photo: AFP
These have made it the target of criticism, but head doctor Takeshi Hasuda sees the facility as a vital safety net.
“There are women out there who are ashamed that they did something horrible [by getting pregnant] and are so scared,” he said.
“For these women, a place like ours that bars no one and makes them think ‘even I will be welcome’ counts a lot, I think.”
Nurses try to arrive at the hatch, with its stork illustrations and meticulously tended baby bed, within a minute of the alarm sounding.
“If we find mothers lingering nearby, we ask if they’re comfortable sharing their stories,” said hospital staff member Saori Taminaga.
They offer to check the health of mothers, providing support and encouraging them to leave information that could help a child learn their origins later in life.
“If they try to go, we persist and keep pushing until just before they leave the grounds. Once that happens, it’s time for us to give up.”
The Catholic-run hospital opened its baby hatch in 2007, modeled on a German scheme.
Baby hatches have existed globally for centuries and are used today in South Korea, Pakistan and the US, among other places.
However, they have been banned in some countries, such as the UK, and criticized by the UN for denying a child’s right to know their parents and identity.
Jikei hospital sees the hatch as a way to prevent abuse and deaths of children in Japan, where police recorded 27 child abandonments in 2020, and at least 57 children died from abuse the year before.
Hasuda said that children abandoned at the hospital include those who were “the result of prostitution, rape and incest,” with mothers finding nowhere else to turn.
“I think the most important role our baby hatch system has played so far is to provide a sort of last resort for women left alienated by society,” he said.
In all, 161 babies and toddlers have been left at the hospital — with some coming from the Tokyo region, about 1,000km away, and beyond.
However, the hatch has also faced skepticism in Japan, partly because of traditional ideas about what constitutes a family, said Chiaki Shirai, an expert on reproduction and adoption studies at Shizuoka University.
The country uses a registration system that lists births, deaths and marriages in a family going back generations. The crucial piece of administrative data also shapes views on family structure.
It has “entrenched the idea in Japanese society that whoever gave birth to a child must raise the child,” to the point where children are almost considered “the property” of parents, Shirai said.
“Children who are abandoned and shown as having no family in the registry are heavily stigmatized,” she added.
Despite the anonymity offered by the hatch, child welfare officials typically try to trace the family of infants abandoned at the hospital.
As a result, about 80 percent later learned their family’s identity, and 20 percent have returned to parents or relatives.
Jikei hospital has expanded the services it offers marginalized women, adding a “confidential birth” program to a pregnancy hotline that fields thousands of calls a year.
Two babies have been delivered under the program, which the hospital said is intended to discourage risky, solitary deliveries at home.
Both mothers told the hospital that they were abused by their parents and wanted their children to be put up for adoption, Hasuda said.
Under the scheme, a mother’s identity is revealed to a single staffer and kept confidential for possible disclosure to the child later on. The program has also faced opposition. While the government has not declared it illegal, it has baulked at legislation to formalize it.
Shirai said women who resort to confidential births or the baby hatch face judgement for not choosing other options, including abortion.
“‘You could have chosen an abortion but didn’t. Now it’s all your fault,’ is the kind of sentiment,” she said.
Abortion has been legal in Japan since 1948 and is available up until 22 weeks, but consent is required from a male partner. Exceptions are granted only in cases of rape or if the partner is dead or missing.
Hasuda, too, thinks that society often prefers to blame women rather than help them.
“Society’s motivation to sympathize with them or help them out seems to be low, if not completely non-existent,” he said.
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