A baby drop-off center raises controversy. A silent alarm sounds, a camera watching the carrier turns on, and the baby is monitored until a nurse arrives. Critics call it an abomination, little more than a baby recycling center. Thirty of them died. The United States is also trying to battle the problem.
Experts estimate twice as many infants are abandoned in America than in Germany.
An infamous case in Delaware in 1996 brought worldwide attention to the problem when two teenagers, Amy Grossberg and Brian Peterson, were convicted for leaving their newborn son to die in a dumpster outside a motel Germany's baby bank program is an attempt to give parents like them an alternative, the ability to give away their baby safely and anonymously. In Colorado a baby only a few hours old and left abandoned on a store shelf was discovered in time to survive. A baby boy in Kentucky left in a trash container in front of a pawn shop also was found alive. And in California motorists found an infant who had been stuffed inside a plastic bag and left behind at a parking lot. Options for Young Mothers Juergen Moysich works at the Sternipark Clinic in Hamburg, which is trying out the program.