Newborn Abandoned In River Rouge, Police Look For Mom

RIVER ROUGE, MI — When she first heard the cry about 8:30 Sunday morning, a worker at a home-based adult day care center in the Downriver town or River Rouge thought it came from a distressed cat. Her first search of the area turned up empty,but something compelled her to keep looking, the worker told reporters. To her astonishment, she discovered a newborn baby, swaddled in a blue blanket with cars on it, her umbilical cord still attached.

The baby was probably only minutes old when she was abandoned near a bush at the foot of steps to the porch of the home, located on the 10 block of Alexander Street, River Rouge police said. The infant is being cared for at Beaumont Hospital in Dearborn and doesn’t appear to have any health problems and is eating well, according to media reports.

Her mother’s identity remains a mystery, though, and police are asking for the public’s help to find her. (For more local news, click here to sign up for real-time news alerts and newsletters from Detroit Patch, click here to find your local Michigan Patch. Also, like us on Facebook, and if you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app.)

River Rouge Police Sgt. Dasumo Mitchell told The Detroit News that police are canvassing the neighborhood and looking at available security video for clues about the mother’s identity.

A couple of working theories for police are that she lives in the area and thought the adult day care center was a safe-haven location, or that she knew workers would be arriving early and would find the newborn quickly, WJBK-TV reported.

The mother could have dropped off the baby at the River Rouge Public Safety Department under Michigan’s safe haven law. Babies can be anonymously surrendered at hospitals and emergency first responder locations, like police and fire departments, within 72 hours of birth under the aw. They may also be turned over to a paramedic responding to a 911 call.

Detective Sgt. Danny Dotson, who has been assigned to the case, said the mother made a risky choice that could have ended badly.

“In my mind, if you’re going to drop off a baby, you leave it in a suitable location, not a front yard,” he told the Detroit Free Press. “A dog could have come up. Anything could have happened before the baby was found.”

More than 200 babes have been surrendered in Michigan since the Safe Delivery Law took effect in 2001, a Michigan Department of Health and Human Services said.

Anyone with information about the identity of the baby’s parents is asked to call River Rouge police at (313) 842-8700.

Photo via Shutterstock