It was a frigid Christmas Eve night in 2017. Families are gathered around the fireplace, and children are preparing cookies and milk. As Calgary celebrated the season of giving and joy, a heart-wrenching and shocking discovery was made at a recycling drop-off in the community of Bowness. A newborn had been placed in a dumpster. The baby, named Baby Eve by the police officer who arrived first at the scene, tragically passed away a few minutes after birth. The mother, Nina Albright, admitted to not calling for help.
The unfortunate reality is that although infant surrender is always a last resort, it is a tragic route some mothers take. Newborns have been abandoned in dumpsters, at the doorsteps of fire stations, in front of police departments, in cars, etc. This has been a recurring issue globally and Calgary is no exception. However, now the Children’s Cottage Society (CCS), a local organization, aims to provide mothers with a safe and legal surrender site at the new facility in the Calgary neighbourhood of Montgomery.
Sarah Hughes, the former director of development of communications at the Children’s Cottage Society, said the death of Baby Eve shook Calgary and was a catalyst for city officials to establish a secure and lawful location for an infant surrender site.
“The collective grief that the 911 agencies had after the baby was found is still tangible, and so they [city officials and officers] are really relieved that somebody has found a way to make this happen for the city,” Hughes said.
Correction: Construction delays mean the cradle won’t be open in January as stated in the video but will instead open later in the new year.
Gems for Gems, a Calgary charity, is the founder of Hope’s Cradle, an initiative that aims to reduce dangerous child abandonments by creating physical safe infant surrender locations. The charity has been empowering women and children through mentorships, helping them leave abusive or violent situations since 2015. In December 2020, the first Hope’s Cradle was placed in a fire department in Strathmore, where it was easier to obtain licensing and install the bassinet because.
Deputy chief of the Strathmore Fire Department, Eric Alexander, says his goal is to have Hope’s Cradle be a more prominent aspect of the fire service.
“The big thing that I would like to see is just it being prevalent in more communities. The cost-benefit ratio is absolutely there for any fire department to overtake it. We spend millions of dollars on trucks and training and equipment and it’s a very small fraction of the price to have Hope’s Cradle installed at the fire hall.”
During the six-year period between the Baby Eve case and creating Hope’s Cradle, Calgary struggled to place a similar safe infant surrender location in the city.
“The level of multiple bureaucracies trying to come together to sort out where it can go, who should organise it, how it would work, just wasn’t jiving,” Hughes said.
The CCS’s overarching goal is to build strong and healthy children and safe nurturing families through preventive programs and supportive services. In June 2022, they began construction of their new facility in Montgomery. This gave them the opportunity to expand their resources and collaborate with Gems for Gems and install a Hope’s Cradle. Within an hour, they secured approval from the charity organization to install the monitored bassinet, which can be discreetly accessed from the building’s exterior at any time of day.
Hughes believes that CCS is the perfect place to host the Hope’s Cradle. As often when a child is abandoned or surrendered, they end up at the centre regardless. The CCS is staffed with nurses and medical professionals 24 hours a day, which makes it a suitable place for a safe infant surrender location.
“For us it is about the child first. Even if we had one child surrendered every year or one in five years. If it had been Baby Eve, that’s a child saved, that’s a good outcome,” Hughes said.
Sarah Hughes, director of development of communications at the Children’s Cottage Society, stands outside the construction site of the Children’s Cottage Society’s new location; at the Hopes Cradle door. PHOTO: JIM WELLS/POSTMEDIA
She believes that mothers should have privacy and feel safe when going through with this delicate process.
“One of the things of looking after the parent is protecting their anonymity, because there are legal implications to surrendering a child. Technically, it is a crime. However, if you can prove it was in the best interest of the child, it is not a crime, and there has never been a parent prosecuted for making the right decision on behalf of their child’s welfare,” said Hughes.
Nina Albright, the birth mother of baby Eve, was found two years after she abandoned her baby. The court judge, John Bascom, believed that jail would be improper for Albright, as her lawyer stated that she had lived a life full of hardships and adversities. Albright was born with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder and has been diagnosed with PTSD, depression and anxiety. While her actions had a profound impact on many people’s lives including Baby Eve, the first responder, the man who discovered her, and the biological father of the baby, Albright was found to be worthy of forgiveness, and was not charged or sentenced to jail.
“I conclude Ms. Albright is a good candidate for rehabilitation and I further find that she will in future not be a danger to herself or others. I find in Ms. Albright’s case a jail sentence would be excessive and not proportionate to the offence of the offender,” said Bascom.