In response to babies being dumped in bins, 22 'baby hatches' in German hospitals now offer desperate mothers somewhere safe to leave newborns. Derek Scally reports

The billboard shows a skip overflowing with rubbish. On the front is a sticker. "Baby on Board," it reads."Some children are lucky. They are given up to us," says the advertisement, giving the address of a clinic in the Berlin suburb of Zehlendorf.

That was how Berliners found out last year about the city's first "baby hatch", where women can give up their babies anonymously.

"We didn't want to shock, rather just show the reality," says Gabriele Stangl of the clinic. "Every year, 40 to 50 babies in Germany are abandoned, many thrown into the rubbish."

In just over a year, the controversy has died down and a further two hatches have been installed.

The second baby hatch was installed last autumn, at a cost of €3,000, in the district of Neukölln. Thirty 30 centimetres high and 70 centimetres wide, it is built into the side wall of Neukölln Hospital. Hidden from the street by trees, a single sign at the entrance leads to the spot where a woman deposited her newborn baby on a bitterly cold afternoon shortly before Christmas.

The hatch opens silently. Inside, the walls are brightly decorated, giving the impression of a miniature nursery. Minutes after the woman left, sensors in the heated hatch detected the arrival. After a delay, designed to give the mother time to leave, the sensors triggered an alarm. Inside, nurses found a baby boy, 49 centimetres long and weighing five pounds and 12 ounces. They named him Felix and, after a few days under observation, he spent Christmas with his new foster family.

"We have done everything necessary so that the child is taken care of. We will not carry out any research into the mother," says Thomas Blesing, a local child- welfare officer.

"An abandoned newborn baby faces three main dangers: hypothermia, hypoglycaemia [lack of sugar] and infection," says Rolf Götte, head doctor at St Joseph's Hospital for Children, in the Templehof district of Berlin, home to the newest baby hatch.

First, doctors check the life signs of the baby: heart rate, breathing, body temperature. They also check whether the baby is full-term or premature and administer appropriate care.

The baby remains under observation for up to three days, during which time a social worker begins the work of finding foster parents for the child.

"We hope the baby hatch will only seldom, perhaps never be used," says Dr Götte. "Only in extreme, hopeless situations, when none of the existing medical and social aid services will do, should the hatch protect the life of a baby."

Sadly, most of the hatches been opened as a result of tragedy.

Germany's first baby hatch opened in Hamburg in March 2000, just months after police discovered two newborn babies in public bins in the city centre.

Berlin, too, has its share of tragic stories. In 1998, a 15-year-old girl threw her newborn baby from the balcony of her 10th-floor apartment. Last year, an 18-year-old suffocated her baby just hours after giving birth by putting it in a plastic bag and locking it away in a chest of drawers.

The media reports alone confirm the need for baby hatches, according to Sister Chiara Lipinski, care manager at St Joseph's. "There have been mothers in need at all times in history. Moses was found floating on the Nile by the pharaoh's daughter, after all."

Caritas, the Church-sponsored charity, is involved in the baby-hatch project in Berlin. Callers to its pregnancy-crisis line are told where to find the hatches and offered counselling. Caritas also offers sheltered accommodation for new mothers as an alternative to leaving their babies in the care of others.

"The opportunity to be taken care of, anonymously and free, for a time can give the mother the space they need to think over their situation in peace," says Ursula Künning of the charity.

A new mother who decides to give up her baby can contact the baby-hatch project later to check on her baby's health. And in the subsequent eight weeks, she can contact the hospital to ask for her baby back.

"If she wants to take the baby back, she receives support to find a new way forward together with her child," says Künning.

In the past two years, 11 babies have been left in Hamburg's two baby hatches.

Four mothers made contact later and one took her baby back.

There are no statistics for Berlin, as two of the three hospitals with hatches decline to discuss their cases.

Some are concerned about the anonymous nature of the scheme, however. In the case of baby Felix in Berlin, state prosecutors say his mother broke two laws: she failed in her maintenance obligations and failed to register the birth. But because her identity is unknown, prosecutors have dropped the case.

The authorities would almost certainly be obliged to proceed with the case were they able to identify the mother, however.

Another concern is that anonymity means there is no guarantee the mother gave up the child freely. Nobody can be sure it was even the mother who left the baby, rather than the woman's parents - or, in the case of a prostitute, her pimp.

"All we can do is work with the police in the case of a missing child," says Dr Markus Grebe of Berlin's first baby hatch, in Zehlendorf.

The baby hatch was once a feature of Dublin life. From 1702, women unable to care for their babies often resorted to the "cradle at the gate" of the Foundling Hospital and Workhouse, which is now St James's Hospital.

The woman laid her baby in the cradle outside the hospital and rang a bell. An employee on the inside would then crank a handle to rotate the cradle, taking out the baby on the other side to bring it into the workhouse.

More than 200,000 infants were admitted to the workhouse between 1702 and 1818; most of them died soon after arriving.

The cradle at the gate has long passed into history; Dr Sean Daly, master of the Coombe Women's Hospital, is doubtful it will make a return in the Republic, even in the new German form.

"I think because the family unit is so strong and because pregnancies outside of marriage are now so commonplace, women would not avail of that," he says.

In less than two years, there are now 22 baby hatches operating in Germany. Last year, the number of abandoned babies discovered dead dropped by 36 per cent compared with the previous year, and the number of abandoned babies found alive fell by about 50 per cent.

The statistics have diluted claims by conservative groups that the baby hatches are causing rather than solving a problem.

"Our appeal for women to seek help while they are still pregnant does not reach everyone," says Sister Lipinski. "This is an extreme solution to an extreme problem."