In alternative to baby boxes, more hospitals offer confidential births

A birth is considered confidential when the mother gives her identity to the authorities, but it is not revealed publicly. Keystone

More hospitals across Switzerland are offering women the opportunity to give birth confidentially, the Keystone-SDA news agency reported on Saturday. The practice, which represents a supervised alternative to “baby boxes”, is still very rare.

At the start of January 2020, the abandonment of a newborn baby in a waste disposal site in Därstetten in canton Bern shocked the public. The infant narrowly escaped death. The mother had given birth alone because she wanted to hide from her partner a pregnancy resulting from an affair with another man.

It is to avoid this kind of drama that confidential deliveries exist. Pregnant women can give birth without the knowledge of their family and friends, while receiving medical care, notes the report. Personal information is kept secret by the hospital and bills for treatment are not sent home. Only the civil registry and the child and adult protection authorities are informed of the birth.

At the Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV), which offers confidential deliveries, a person who calls the maternity ward or asks to see the mother will be told that she is not hospitalised or known. As for visits to the room, they are made with the patient’s permission, according to the hospital’s press service.

The young mothers have six weeks to decide whether they want to have the child adopted, as provided for in the Swiss Civil Code. They have a further six weeks to reconsider their decision. When the child reaches the age of majority, he or she can ask about the identity of the biological mother. This right to know one’s origins, guaranteed by the Constitution, is not respected by so-called baby boxes, which create an opportunity for infants to be abandoned anonymously.

Changes afoot

Sexual Health Switzerland (SHS) has been working for several years to promote confidential births among the public and health professionals. It wants the right to confidential births enshrined into law – a step already taken by some cantons.

In 2020, the umbrella organisation of Swiss sexual health centres published a report on this practice, which until then had remained rather unknown. According to Christine Sieber of SHS, the study has had a resounding impact.

“Since our report, things have really started to change,” says Sieber. Hospitals offering this option now exist in 20 out of the country’s 26 cantons, compared to 18 in 2020. “It is a subject that affects and concerns the most vulnerable people in society.”

Most of them are women who did not realise they were pregnant and who can no longer terminate their pregnancy, she explains. “They tend to be young women, often with an immigrant background, but not always,” she adds. “Being pregnant can put them at risk, for example because they are forbidden to have sex before marriage.” Most give their babies to adoptive parents.

No statistics

There are no nationwide statistics on confidential deliveries. Sieber estimates that there are between 20 and 30 per year in the country, which is much more than the average of two cases per year for baby boxes, she says. In the canton of Vaud, almost all hospitals have already compiled a tally and tend to report just a couple of cases per year, if any, according to the Swiss new agency. Chuv characterises the situation as “extremely rare”.