Stanislaus County is providing four places -- all of them hospital emergency rooms -- where parents can legally abandon newborn babies.

The Board of Supervisors took the action this week under a new state law that aims to keep babies from being left in trash bins, fields and other dangerous places.

"We have cases every year, so this is not a rarity, and we want the county to have safe locations for these children to be left," said Dr. John Walker, the county health officer.

Under the law, which took effect Jan. 1, parents can avoid child-abandonment charges if babies up to 72 hours old are left at emergency rooms or other places designated by each county.

The Stanislaus County board opted to use just the emergency rooms. They are at Doctors Medical Center and Memorial Medical Center in Modesto, Emanuel Medical Center in Turlock and Oak Valley Hospital in Oakdale.

The county will mount a publicity campaign about the policy, aimed especially at teen-age parents.

"I think what it will do is help parents who perhaps don't know what else to do," said Lyndalee Whipple, assistant director for family services. "It will give them an ability to put a child into a safe environment."

The state Department of Health Services reported that 105 newborns were abandoned in California in 1998. Two of those were babies found dead in Stanislaus County. In one prominent case from 1995, a newborn girl survived being left on a canal bank near Oakdale.

Walker said the policy would ensure care for babies who were born outside hospitals and whose mothers might have abused drugs or lacked prenatal care.

He said early publicity about the law gave some people the mistaken idea that babies could be left at police and fire stations.

"But that really is a safety issue because you cannot be sure the personnel are trained, you cannot be sure the stations are manned in outlying areas," he said.

Under the new law:

A baby must be handed to an emergency room employee. "That avoids the situation of somebody coming out and finding the child on the steps," Walker said.

The hospital must provide whatever medical care the baby needs, then turn him or her over to the county child welfare agency. Even before the new law, abandoned babies went through these steps, said Crystal Luffberry, a manager with Stanislaus County child welfare services.

No identification is required, but anyone leaving a baby will be asked to fill out a questionnaire on family medical history.

Anyone dropping off a baby has 14 days to ask for the infant back, with the approval of the child welfare agency. Otherwise, the county proceeds with arranging foster care or adoption for the child.

The Legislature passed the measure unanimously last year. The only opposition came from groups arguing that it would make abandonment attractive to parents who should be making adoption plans.

Proponents say they do not like the idea that some parents cast off their babies, but the law at least looks to the safety of the children.

"Better that the law provide some safe alternative for a child than that a baby be left in a Dumpster or a field somewhere," Luffberry said.

Reprinted by permission of Modesto Bee.