'Foundling Wheel' Collects Unwanted Babies
Feb. 26, 2007 — -- She was only four hours old when she was abandoned on a truck; her umbilical cord still hanging out.
"At five in the morning, two policemen brought Rachele to the hospital," remembers Dr. Piermichele Paolillo, head of the neonatology department of Casilino Hospital in Rome. "I knew Rachele would be fine, but I couldn't stop thinking that if it had been winter and if she hadn't been found on time, she would have died."
It is because of this baby with eastern features that Dr. Paolillo conceived the idea of a heated cradle area where parents could safely and anonymously abandon their unwanted newborns. And Saturday, a 4-month-old baby was the first to be left in the crib.
Unfortunately, he will be only one among many others abandoned at the hospital.
"This is the hospital with the highest number of abandoned babies, 30 between 2004 and 2006," Paolillo told ABC News. "To save baby lives and avoid that they be abandoned on the streets, we decided to go back to the past. We revived the medieval foundling wheels, which now, in 2006, has become a high-tech wheel."
A long time ago, as far back as the 8th century, it was common for desperate mothers to lay an unwanted child on the so-called "foundling wheel," a wooden barrel that was half inside the wall of a convent and half outside. Mothers could leave their babies there without being seen and the nuns would come to collect them straight afterwards.
Today's version of the wheel follows the same concept, but has been updated. The barrel is now a room with a heated cradle inside. Through a glass window, parents can leave the baby in the crib. A camera is pointed on it and the room is endowed with sensors that alert the hospital staff once the baby is put in the cradle. The whole system allows whoever brings the child to remain unidentified.
At the hospital, the baby is assisted by a team of social workers and psychologists that follow him or her through the adoption process.
Maririna Tuccinardi, head of youth projects for the Rome City Council told ABC News that adoption for these babies' is a certainty.
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