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Subscribe to RSSThe baby girl was discovered by pets that had picked up on her scent coming from the bag. Keith Garvin of NBC station KPRC reports.
Child welfare officials have taken custody of a newborn girl who was found abandoned in a plastic grocery bag by passing dogs in Cypress, Texas.
The infant was in good condition at Texas Children's Hospital but was lucky to be alive, doctors and law enforcement officials said.
"If it had not have been for the resident that came out to walk her dogs, that child may have laid there all night (and) possibly would have died," said Harris County sheriff's Sgt. Gordon Trott told NBC station KPRC of Houston.
The girl was found by a fence about 7 p.m. (8 p.m. ET) Tuesday near an apartment complex in Cypress, a city of 57,000 about 25 miles northwest of Houston. Overnight low temperatures there have dropped into the low 40s in recent days.
About 3 inches of her umbilical cord was still attached, and while it had been cut, it hadn't been clamped, Trott said. That made her situation especially perilous.
"If the cord is not clamped before it's cut, there is a risk of the baby bleeding out through the unclamped cord, which could have led to a baby's death," Tiffany McKee-Garrett, a pediatrician at Texas Children's Hospital, told KPRC.
Sheriff's deputies were still searching Thursday for the baby's mother, who they said could face a felony child endangerment charge.
Child welfare officials said they were perplexed by the case, because Texas law allows anyone to drop off a newborn at a hospital or a fire station — no questions asked.
"All you have to do is hand the baby over," said Gwen Carter, a spokeswoman for Harris County Child Protective Services.
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Or, (and I'm aware of the flak I'll catch for this, don't care) Texas could make abortions more easily accessed. That is all.
You bet. This is all Texas' fault!
Texas
The state that is stopping funding for abortion.
Shutting down Planned Parenthood
Start leaving them on Gov Perry's door-step
or evangelicals pulpit
Some "mommy" let her paycheck go.
Casey Anthony
Moved to Texas?
The editor needs to catch these: "which could of led to a baby's death," Could of? Really? It's could have. As in could've, not could of. Please.
It is pretty bad coming from a professional, unless that was a direct quote from someone else.
Exactly.
Thank you.
It always amazes me that someone would want the baby die rather than be adopted and live.
Absolutely terrible! I cannot believe people do things like this, especially with Safe Haven laws (do they have those in TX?).
To the article's author: You need to go back to Journalism school and learn proper English. The two separate quotes: "If it had not of been..." said by Harris County sheriff's Sgt. Gordon Trott, and "...which could of led to a baby's death," said by Tiffany McKee-Garrett, are grammatically INCORRECT. The word OF, does not replace the word HAVE by any means. They should have read, "If it has not HAVE been..." and "...which could HAVE led to the baby's death." These inaccuracies took me right out of the article. While literacy is most likely declining, there is no excuse for a professional journalist to make these mistakes, especially if the quotes were given verbally and not written.
Shame on the girl, or woman (since we don't know how young or old this person is) for just dropping the baby in a plastic bag like some piece of garbage and leaving her to die.
Anyone with half a brain knows that you can drop a child at the fire station, hospital, police station ... common sense. Schools shouldn't have to teach people common sense. But apparently, I am wrong as is evident with this story!
It's not common sense. It's public information.
And, if a teenager doesn't have a driver license, how are they going to get to the fire station?
You people who are balming Christians and republicans for this have to be the stupidest, most ignorant people in the world. How about putting the blame where it lies?? Gee novel concept in this country. Somthing goes wrong and it's the Christians and the republicans!! What a crock of crap!!
From one fed up white American middle class Christian woman!!!!
Get used to these kinds of stories. The Christian right will make sure that things like this keep happening.
Lack of education and medical treatment, thanks to the Christian right.
Yes mr angry! This is the kind of thing we Christians enjoy. You betcha!
You must enjoy it, other wise you would learn to MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS.
Why don't you mind yours and quit lumping all Christians into your stupid mold!
I will never understand how anyone can do this to a baby. Especially when you can take the baby to a hospital and no questions are asked. Come on! Just sickens all of us with normal care and feelings. So glad that woman was walking her dogs. Thank goodness for those dogs and their very special noses!
You're making a lot of assumptions about the circumstances and maturity of the mother.
She is not a mother.
She gave birth to a child. She is the biological mother, and I say that you are making a lot of assumptions about her situation.
Replican/T-Bag Trash
Want all abortion stopped
So they will have more POOR PEOPLE
To lord it over
Do not give a sh-t about a person
just an unborn fetus
and not a crap after birth
until old enough to send to fight an enemy
they invent them all the time
ENEMIES
If they looke in the mirror
They would even HATE
Themselves
"..could of..."?
Trying to force others to live by your F**kedup rules. Christian Conservatives are neither.
The woman should be charged with first degree murder, and when convicted, made to pay the ultimate price.
The baby did not die, fortunately. She certainly had angels around her.
So, when we discover this kid was thirteen years old, we should convict her of first degree murder and execute her?
NO WONDER she was afraid of adults. It's people like you that make kids do things like this.
When are you (WE THE PEOPLE) (WORLD) will admit and realized that animals (DOGS are PEOPLE TOO) they have feeling like you and ME!! you can always count on them for an UNCONDITIONAL support!!!! THERE ARE NO BAD DOGS/ ONLY BAD OWNERS and for that who gets PUNISH!!! DOGS!!! (ANIMALS) they are defendless nor/can speak. Why do you think they use cadaver's dogs ?? why do you think they use DOGS to follow a sense !!!!! and YET all of you!!(WE THE PEOPLE) SHELTERS/SICKOS/BAD OWNERS/BAD PEOPLE continues to abuse DOGS (animals) GET WITH THE PROGRAM!! and STOP ABUSING ANIMALS!! CREATE A LAW WHERE abusing animals in ANY STATE is a CRIME/punish those who ABUSE ANIMALS!!! SHARED FAR AND WIDE. THIS IS LUPITA BLAND !!!!!!!!!~!!
Who cares why the sorry, dead beat girl done it. She is still just that "SORRY" There are millions of people that would LOVE to have a baby, all she had to do was give the baby up for adoption. Now, I hope they charge with everything possible!!!
That would require her to involve adults in the situation, and that is apparently what terrified her. And, since people like you refer her to a "sorry, dead beat girl", I'm not surprised she would be reluctant to seek your help. It's likely some terrified thirteen year old kid that barely knew what was happening, and never had decent parents to teach what to do, and what was important. If we are going to blame someone, we might want to look at who was mothering the mother.
Yeh, "all she had to do". Must be great to be perfect.
Studies have shown that teenagers have an undeveloped frontal cortex, the area of the brain that helps them figure out consequences of actions, both intelligent and stupid actions. They engage in magical thinking - like, I haven't gotten pregnant when I've had unprotected sex with my boyfriend, therefore, I won't get pregnant having unprotected sex with my boyfriend. And girls given abstinence only education somehow believe that it is less "wrong" to get swept away in the moment, and more wrong to plan to have sex. I have no idea what the circumstances are here, but it usually turns out to be a young girl who didn't/couldn't tell her parents about her pregnancy, probably had no idea what her due date was, maybe was in total denial that she was even pregnant. I hope she doesn't try to get this baby back, what a disaster.
Just as many are perplexed that the mother did not know what to do when it's "public knowledge", it seems perplexing that we know that teenagers do not have fully developed brains, and yet we hold them responsible as if they were, biologically, capable of handling that responsibility.
Perplexing, isn't it? Or, at least, irrational.
I would like to think that most people, even the ones saying that this woman should be killed, beaten, jailed, etc., would stand by their own daughter should she come home pregnant, no matter how much of a disgrace it would be. Whoever did this, I feel really badly that she felt like she had no place to turn to.
Of course, there is the occasional sociopath, like the girl who gave birth at her prom and threw the baby out in the trash...but mostly, it is young and scared girls who don't know what to do.
Disgusting! What's wrong with people?!?!
Thankfully something else was watching out for this baby, hopefully the mother gets caught and gets help that she needs. Give that dog a delicious bone on me.
Stop referring to the woman who left the baby as the "mother". She is not a mother at all.
How could a mom do this. I have wanted children for so many years and went to adoption and picked several times to have them change their minds. There are so many women out there that would gladly adopt this baby!
She carried this child for 9 months and there was a bond to only throw the poor little girl away like a piece of trash.
My heart breaks for this little one!
Trashy people like this make Texans look bad. Let it be known that we are not all like this. Of course with so many people moving here from other states and countries, we might be the minority now.
I don't get how the mother could "face a felony child endangerment charge". She should be charged with attempted murder!
The women who do this are women who are overwhelmed, who do not or did not have as kids, proper guidance or emotional support in their lives. It seems perfectly obvious to someone who is mature and has it all together what the correct thing to do is, but to a confused and overwhelmed person, possibly even a child herself, who suddenly has the immense responsibility fall on top of them, seemingly out of nowhere, like a crushing weight, they react instinctively to escape from it.
It is heart-breaking.
dfwmom,
Your post certainly lends understanding to the plight of the overwhelmed, and it is heartbreaking. However, what about the plight of a newly born baby, the epitome of innocence? Don't they deserve a modicum of understanding, as well?
How damaged would a person have to be to have their "instinct" be "put baby in trash bag, dump by side of road," as opposed to "protect this innocent human life, this piece of me."
If you feel like you have no place to turn, no one can find out that you were pregnant, and no support, you don't connect to the baby as a human being, but only can panic and feel that the baby is a problem, it isn't a far reach to try to bury the issue like refuse.
Whoever she is, she didn't do the right thing, I agree. But I can see how it can happen...and does happen, all too often.
So many similarities...
Baby does resemble Pea Brain Perry da guvenor
Naw
Everbody knows
Pea-Brain
Has as many balls
As intelligience
Everyone that voted fer m
r sowe proud
First, it is great news that this most innocent of human lives was saved. Too bad this poor child had the misfortune of being birthed by irresponsible miscreants.
Second, I find it distracting when a writer/jounalist (a person of words, mind you, who has such a passion for writing that they have pursued it for an education, then as a career) uses a phrase such as "could of" (of which none exist) in place of the more accurate "could've" or "could have." Although jarring, I usually do not make a fuss, unless the transgression is made by someone who is actually PAID to know better.
Again, thank goodness this baby was found before the unthinkable occurred.