Newborn Left in Bronx Clinic
'I can't afford' her, says mom's sad note
By Austin Fenner and John Marzulli, Daily News Staff Writers
Originally published in the New York Daily News, February 23, 2002
A newborn girl swaddled in a white blanket was abandoned at a Bronx medical clinic yesterday, apparently by a mother who left a heartbreaking note saying she was too poor to care for the child.
"Please take this baby to the hospital as soon as possible," she wrote. "Please find a family to take care of her. I can't afford it."
A spokesman for the Morris Heights Clinic on West Burnside Ave. said the staff was grateful that the troubled mother viewed the facility as a safe haven.
"If someone is going to abandon a child, we'd rather it be here than in a garbage can," said Joe Hastick, director of marketing at the clinic. "I guess the mother just felt overwhelmed.
"But we're fairly well-known in the area, so I guess the mother wanted the baby to have some care," he added.
The infant was found by a child. About 10 a.m., 7-year-old Alicia Reyes went into the ladies' rest room, saw a blanket on the floor and discovered it was moving, Hastick said. She alerted her mother.
The baby, only about two hours old, was wearing a diaper, a fleece top and a red bandanna around her tiny head. Clinic doctors and nurses rushed to her aid, clamping the umbilical cord.
The infant's body temperature was only 90 degrees, so they began warming her under lamps until an ambulance arrived to take her to Bronx-Lebanon Hospital.
Dr. John Walsh, a pediatrician at the clinic who has 2-year-old twins at home, called his wife and discussed adopting the baby.
"We're all falling in love with her," Walsh beamed.
The clinic workers have dubbed her "Alicia" for the little girl who found her.
Late yesterday afternoon, hospital officials proudly announced that the 5-pound, 10-ounce girl was doing fine in the neonatal intensive care unit.
The mother, if found, will not face criminal charges because of legislation signed by Gov. Pataki two years ago making it legal to drop off an uharmed baby at a medical facility or firehouse within five days of birth no questions asked.
The incident came one day after a dead baby was found stuffed in a bag and dumped in a bathroom at Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens.
