Hope for Trash Can Babies

Every once in awhile, a news story appears in my web browser that perfectly captures my mental state at the time. That's not to say that I ever seriously contemplated trashing my kids or giving birth on an airplane and forgetting to mention it as I exited the plane. But this story from New Zealand about a Samoan woman really caught my imagination.

"The television station said authorities discovered something was wrong after she approached them saying she had misplaced her passport. They noticed she was pale and blood-stained." 

What I'd like to know is how she gave birth in a tiny plane bathroom without alarming everyone on the plane. And how did she fit her baby in one of those tiny airplane waste bins that are always overflowing with paper towels? Thank goodness they're both safe and reunited.

Or maybe reunion is not such a hot idea if the woman shoved her newborn into the trash and got off the plane? 

A brief search on Samoa did not give me any more information. As far as I know it is not a known ritual in any human culture, but you never know what the trend might be in the South Pacific these days. No offense meant to any Samoans reading this, I am merely trying to shed some light on a very nearly tragic situation.

Speaking about trash can babies, remember the Wisconsin teen who birthed her baby in the bathroom at prom and after throwing him away went out to keep dancing? I wonder what music was playing when she left the bathroom and thus her baby whom paramedics couldn't resuscitate.

There are many instances of just this sort of thing. In fact I came across an anti-choice/pro-life site that listed them as examples of more immorality on the part of today's would-be mothers. But I am loath to admit that the authors of this site touched on a larger issue: in a society where trash can babies are relatively common, how can we provide a safe place for these babies? Preferably one well away from the trash bin.

Now surely, there are some who might argue that the birth itself rendered these single mothers so angry at their progeny that their instinct to destroy the outcome of such a process was natural. But I am an eternal optimist, and I like to look for a more positive angle in the messes that are these trash can baby tales. 

For all the horror stories and images out there promoting the idea of birth as a painful-ordeal-from-Hell requiring strong meds and doctors, the truth is that these women had unassisted births. Moreover, births that did not require them to call out alarming others. Births that worked, up to the point that the trash can reared its gaping maw. But my point is that the unspoken positive in all this is that even under the extreme duress that these women were under, their bodies did what women's bodies do--have babies naturally without a slew of high-tech gadgetry and OCD medical procedures.

Let's focus on the positive, people! And may I suggest that if waste bins are becoming the rage in secret births, let's put ones in public bathrooms that are big enough for babies and equipped with blankets + an automatic call button that would alert the authorities when a baby is placed in one.