On November 18, WSBT-TV in Misiwakna, Indiana broke the story that a newborn dropped off in a Safe Haven Baby Box had been adopted there during National Adoption (Awareness) Month. The adoptive parents are Bruce Faltynski, a Mishawaka police officer, and his wife Shelby, a Nurse Practitioner. The baby’s name is Myah.
It’s not uncommon to find boxed babies in the news. They are essential to SHBB movement growth and money stream. They show up at SHBB Inc fundraisers, box blessings, and press conferences. Occasionally, there’s a “reunion” story when the child meets with firefighters at the station they were dropped at. This is the first time I’ve seen the actual “real-time” box adoption publicized, but I figured this was just another puff piece for NAM/NAMM, which it was.
Perhaps because it was NAM/NAAM then, other media copy-catted the story and now it’s gone on the wire and international, Even People checked in. I have no other idea why this is a big story outside of the baby box angle and that the adoptive dad is a cop. Of course, the SHBB Inc Mighty Wurlitzer never misses a churn.
Whatever is going on, the public and unfortunately, the usual incurious media, find nothing peculiar about the story surrounding Baby Myah’s case. But there is. Things are overlooked.
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Here are the points of contention and my comments
(1) Barely a day old, Myah was dropped off at a Safe Haven Baby Box in Lake County. (Note: the story does not give an exact date of the drop-off, but indicates it was some time in April, a month after the adoption of the the Faltynski’s 8-year old daughter.
SHBB Inc routinely announces box “surrenders.” Most announcements include the date (or approximate date), location, and press conference. SHBB Inc says that the total number of cases since box introduction in 2017 is 21. This year it reports 7 with 6 in Indiana, and 1 in Arkansas. There is no report of a case in Lake County either in 2022 or any other year. Go here for a summary of all cases.
2022 Indiana cases:
- April 1-2: Franciscan Health, Hammond, Girl
- April 4: Carmel Fire Department #45, Boy
- April 16, Carmel Fire Department #45, Girl
- May 14, Carmel Fire Department #45, Boy
- June 30, Mooresville Fire Station, Girl
- July l, Schererville Fire Station, Girl
The Hammond and April 16 Carmel case are the only two that would apply to the timeframe, but it’s unlikely that fire and hospital officials would stage phony news conferences to throw a cover over a Lake County case that for some reason was not announced. The only case that might have happened in Lake County, in fact, occurred on November 1, 2020, described as “Baby left in the “Chicago Corridor.”
If Baby Myah was dropped in a Lake County box, then why didn’t SHBB Inc report it or at least mysteriously increase their catch list by one, making today’s total 22, not 21? The organization has added mystery babies before. Was Baby Myah, in fact, a traditional safe haven case, and not a box case? It’s confusing and for what?
(2) When she was born, Myah had a stroke.
The part of the brain that was affected controls her speech and hearing.
But don’t worry, she made it quite clear how she’s doing.
“We have weaned her completely off her seizure medication and she still has the stroke. That will always be there, but as you can hear she’s reaching all of her developmental milestones and the neurologist is very hopeful that she might not have any neurological deficits. Time will tell,” said Shelby Faltynski.
Monica Kelsey, founder and CEO of SHBB Inc has repeatedly claimed that all of the babies “surrendered” in boxes have been healthy and that their mothers, most of whom did not receive prenatal care and delivered alone, (how does she know?) were born “completely healthy.” She was forced to walk that back when she learned that one of the boys “surrendered” at Carmel this Spring was (pending investigation) being returned to a parent. She went to the press squawking confidential medical information, which she has no business knowing or divulging, that his parents were reportedly drug users and he was born with drugs in his system. Since then she has said “all but one”–sometimes.
Does anyone believe that all 21 (or is that 22?) babies left in baby boxes and their mothers experienced no medical issues? No medical provider I have ever spoken to believes this. Some might be OK. Others not. Since no one can officially check on mothers, due to the baby box “anonymity” law, we can’t say how many of either experience pre- and postnatal complications. Of course, the anonymity of some of the moms is questionable, since Mrs. Kelsey talks about her personal relationships with them post-“surrender. but that’s a story for another day.
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Pregnancy and Birth Complications
Pregnancy and birth complications, of course, are common enough without the added weight of lack of or limited prenatal care and unattended delivery.
The Eunice Kennedy Shriver Kenndy National Institute for Child Health and Human Development lists these common pregnancy complications: high blood pressure, gestational diabetes, infections, preeclampsia, preterm labor, depression and anxiety, pregnancy loss/miscarriage, stillbirth, severe, persistent nausea and vomiting, and iron deficiency anemia.
Childbirth complications: labor that does not progress; perineal tears; problems with umbilical cord; abnormal heart rate of the baby; water breaking early; perinatal asphyxia, shoulder dystocia; excessive bleeding.
Since Baby Myah suffered a perinatal stroke, defined as a stroke that occurs between the 140th day of the gestation period and the 28th postpartum day, I looked up causes.
A lot of online resources are pretty technical, but I found a couple that explains the cause of perinatal stroke. I’m using Wiki here. I want to stress that this does not mean that Baby Myah’s mother’s possible lack of pre-natal care caused the stroke. These strokes happen with the best of care, but it is clear that conditions causing them to develop when pregnancy and birth are not conducted with professional medical care.
Perinatal stroke is correlated with various risk factors in infants including birth trauma, placental disorders, infections, and the mother’s health.[4]
Birth trauma and mechanical trauma to the fetal head and neck can cause stroke by damaging arteries: Some children may have arteries that are damaged by trauma or inflammation leaving a rough or jagged inner lining where blood clots can get stuck. These clots can build up enough so that eventually the artery is clogged and no blood can flow through.[23] In addition to vascular damage, trauma to the fetal head from excessive uterine activity, manipulation, pressure, and forceps or vacuum application via direct occlusion or vasospasm can cause perinatal ischemic stroke.[24]
Hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE),[25] also known as birth asphyxia arises from oxygen deprivation in the womb. HIE results from placental abruption, umbilical cord problems, uterine rupture, or the failure to identify abnormal heart rate by the medical staff.[26]
Placental disorders associated with perinatal stroke, range from anatomical (site or degree of implantation) such as placenta previa[27] to placenta-maternal effects (fetal erythroblastosis).[28]
Infections like chorioamnionitis cause an infection in the maternal blood, commonly leading to premature birth and the newborn experiencing brain damage, meningitis, or death.[29][30] Other infections include neonatal sepsis, where the immune system reacts by affecting their organs and tissues resulting in meningitis, seizures, and cerebral palsy.[31]
The mother’s health is also associated with perinatal stroke, some factors include blood clotting disorders, congenital heart diseases, and prenatal cocaine exposure.[32] Blood clotting disorders such as Hemophilia A and B result from low clotting factor quantities leading to heavy bleeding.[33] In congenital heart disease, perinatal stroke results from the disruption of blood flow from obstruction of a blood vessel in the brain.[3][34]
However, various infants still experience perinatal stroke after a normal pregnancy and studies have shown that sometimes there is a lack of direct cause and many infants are idiopathic.[32]
All-in-all, NICHHD lists the five most common causes of infant death: (1) birth defects. (2) preterm birth and low birth weight, (3) Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, (4) pregnancy complications, and (5) accidents. Perinatal strokes fit into that list. The nobody-has-to-know-you-are-pregnant/had-this baby doctrine of Baby Box promoters exacerbates 1, 2, and 4.
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Down the SHBB Inc Rabbit Hole
Photography TY Lim/Shutterstock
Are any of the so-called SHBB Inc’s “trained counselors” prepared to counsel on these issues beyond a superficial level, if that?
Why does SHBB Inc continue to brag that none (or almost none) of their babies and moms have suffered from complications due to lack of medical care and unattended birth? This is clearly untrue and suggests to potential moms that concealed pregnancy holds little danger.
Scratch that!
I don’t believe that they encourage women to conceal pregnancies–at least from medical providers; everybody else like parents, husbands, boyfriends, and friends, is fine. I do believe they downplay bad outcomes, especially to the public where they recruit their moms.
No Muss No Fuss babies. At the bottom of this page, you will find a SHBB Inc 8+ minute training film (cleverly marketed as a PSA) targeting teen girls on how to have a secret baby. We see the pregnant teen and her BFF scouring the internet for a solution to the problem. We do not see the bloody birth, which may or may not take place at home, but she leaves her immaculate bedroom, sneaks out of her upscale home, and her friend drives her to their nearby baby box. Her friend drops the baby in the box, and they drive away in an immaculate car. into the winter night. No sign of blood,sweat,and tears. Would you want your daughter to watch this video? Would you want her to do this?
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I remember years ago when I attended a traditional safe haven bill hearing in Ohio, where the sponsor said that it would be easy for a 12-year-old to hop on the bus with her 2-hour-old baby to take it to a fire station! The committee, packed with co-sponsors went Whoa! Somebody needs to say Whoa to Mrs. Kelsey (and her “PSA”)
The silence on the dangers of untreated pregnancy, unattended birth, anonymous baby box abandonment, and the lifelong consequences for mother and baby reminds me of that moment. Potential baby box moms, especially young ones, are kept from a very ugly reality. I may be naive, but I would think that anyone who has given birth would see this brush-off, and think oh-oh. So should the media.
I am not suggesting that the media snoop around Baby Myah’s medical history or try to track down her mother. What I do think is that somebody out there–besides the handful of us fighting baby box lies–needs to bring up these questions instead of kowtowing to SHBB Inc and remaining silent.
That no one has followed up on the two questions growing out of the Baby Myah case (and others outside of this case and the scope of the particular blog) is troubling indicating that it continues to fall down on the job because, well…it’s all about “saving babies,” and nobody wants to be the bad guy.
If I were writing a news story about this case, even a puff piece, I’d have looked around for announcements or a press conference (I already did) or contacted whoever would handle a SHBB case in Lake County. (I may yet do that!). Maybe this is some hidden case that crawled out of the woodwork for NAM and nobody cares. If I am wrong about this, I will admit it.
Years ago I was featured in People Magazine. Before the article went to press I underwent stringent fact-checking for about one hour. Later I went through another 20 minutes of re-fact-checking. It looks like People simply re-wrote the wire this one.
It is unconscionable that no one in the popular press has, to the best of my knowledge, discussed dangerous health issues with baby box dumps. Mrs. Kelsey occasionally says something like everybody turned out healthy so what’s the big deal,– the baby is alive. You’d think questions that reflect on the integrity and transparency of the company and welfare of moms and babies would have a better answer.
There are so many questions about SHBB Inc : its history, funding, and funding schemes, agenda, efficacy, claims, evangelicalism, and lack of transparency, as well as legitimate criticism of the movement that SHBB Inc hides and the media ignores, you have to wonder how many rabbits need to scurry down the hole until somebody pursues them.
Would you want your daughter to do this?
Poke the Bear?
We Poke Back!
Day 29 NAM/NAAM/NanoPoblano
Originally posted: Stop Safe Haven Baby Boxes Now, November 29, 2022
Only 1 more day
This is one of the many reasons I disappeared. I got tired of arguing. That said, people have been anonymously abandoning babies forever; now we have the genetic analysis technology to track down the families. Pregnancy complications? As in the case you cite above, if they’re serious enough they’ll show. Babies can choke on the umbilical cord or just be fucked up because bad luck. Real risks imo are drug addiction and FAS, the former often being obvious, the latter taking time to diagnose but a risk with any anonobaby. Then there’s who the hell had this baby – IS it a 12 year old who was raped by her step-dad or brother or heck knows who? Legalizing babydumps gives an incentive to not ask those questions. You’ve probably written separately about this. Admittedly I’ve been out of the loop.
Right. I’ve written so much. The case I just wrote about really bugs me. Kelsey has bragged for a long time that all but one of their boxed babies was born at home unassisted and mom and baby were perfectly fine. No problems. Perfectly healthy. It’s just not true. That “training video” was just the end for me. I’ll be doing more with it. Their hotline coordinator is evangelical darling and purity educator Pam Stenzel, who when on her lecture circuit tells teenage girls if they have sex before marriage no one will want them, they are like an old shoe or a chewed piece of gum. Also, “If your mother puts you on birth control she hates you.” You will die of cancer. This is all on records. She wrote on my SSSHBBN FB page that adoptees wsho oppose boxes are mentally impaired. She also called me a pedophile, but took it down.
There is so much questionable stuff about the whole “movement.” The anon. is a joke; not only because of the technology you mentioned, but some of these moms and Kelsey have developed personal relationships. They come to SHBB events. At least one does volunteer work for them. One, perhaps the same mom, is in an open adoption now. SHBB actually as a baby registry where parents can submit any kind of information they want about themselves and the kid that SHBB keeps on file. Not the state who has custody and handles the adoptions. Kelsey has complained largely that the state shouldn’t have that responsibility and she “wants to change that.” How? I dunno. But probably farming custody and placement to private agencies like they do for traditional SH caseds in IL,k FL, and MI and probably more states. Greg Luce and I have done a lot of research on this–Greg more than me–and it’s scary Michigan has had hunders of SH cases–all but a handful are born in hospitals to identified parents, and then are sourced out for adoption at $60,00 or more a piece. I’ve got a blog about Bethany. It’so n DC and SSHBBN.
I forgot to mention that their slogan is “Women Demand Anonymity.” We ahe had biolls running in states and they come in behind with that. Oh, I could write more, but won’t. I can’t shut up.
Also I noticed a recent uptick in social media hysteria (with attendant memery) about the “dangers of pregnancy” which include not just the standard dangers (most of which are transitory), but all sorts of weird, nasty, and frankly resentful-sounding claims of how pregnancy is the ruination of, not only a person’s body, personal freedom, peace of mind, and health, but also of course, the planet. I guess it’s a refreshing breather from all the posts on how some millennial’s ADHD is really affecting their polyamorous pegging schedule, but it’s just become so banal how so many of them drone on and on with how special and mentally ill they are (mostly via memes) that it rather saddens me. Yes, I remained Facebook friends with my now young adult kids’ various friends and acquaintances and then I went back too school for something-or-other and met a bunch of others. Wow, I’m rambling. Haven’t written fuckall in a long time, Marlez. Hi.
I do try to follow what you’ve been up to. At least you have a life. This is all I freaking do. You know I’m giving in Corpus Christi now. I really love it here–especially the weather. Texas politicians are another story. How lucky can we get? Greg Abbott, Ted Cruz, and John Cornyn. All we need is Ron DeSantis and MTG. Most recently the TX House passed a clean bill, but the Senate never gave it a hearing. One bitch there holds the whole thing up every time.. If not for her, the bill would have passed. Good to hear from you.