Health professionals remind public about resources for pregnant teens
Days after the arrest of a 17-year-old El Paso girl accused of killing her newborn baby, health officials are reaching out to the public to raise awareness about resources available to expectant mothers.
El Paso County Sheriff’s deputies arrested Erica Gomez Friday. Investigators say she gave birth to her baby at home and abandoned the infant in a shed. The baby was found with a stab wound and lacerations to her neck and body. Gomez is charged with capital murder.
According to the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, the Safe Haven law, also known as the Baby Moses law, gives parents who are unable to care for their child a safe and legal choice to leave their infant with an employee at a designated spot, no questions asked.
“Safe places” are any hospital, fire station or free-standing emergency center station in the state of Texas. The parent can give their baby to an employee and tell them they’d like to leave their baby in a safe place. If the baby is unharmed, the person will not be prosecuted for abandonment or neglect.
According to a report on the number of abandoned newborns in Texas from 1996 to 2006 archived by the National Institutes of Health, babies continued to be abandoned in unsafe conditions despite the passage of the law.
Texas was the first state in the U.S. to enact a Save Haven law.
The 2008 study by a researcher identified as SL Pruitt warned “state agencies do not systematically collect data on the number of illegally abandoned infants and infants legally surrendered under the law.”
For the study, researchers reviewed Texas newspapers and found 93 infants were abandoned in the 10-year period. Of the 70 percent of babies who were found alive, only 11 of them were legally surrendered.
The legislature did not allocate any funding to publicize the law, according to several media sources reviewed by ABC-7.
“A statewide surveillance system should be implemented to evaluate this important public health problem,” the researcher concluded.
At University Medical Center, there’s a “safe baby site” sign on the front door.
Director of Women’s Services at UMC Gloria Delgado told ABC-7 once a baby is handed over to an employee, the infant is taken to the emergency room for evaluation. The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services is then notified, and they take over from there. Delgado said the purpose of the law is to save lives.
“We don’t disclose the parents name or anything like that,” Delgado said. “This is to do it safely. Whatever situation pushed them that they cannot take care of the baby or afford the care of the baby, if they feel safe coming and leaving it with us, we will help them.”
The Socorro Independent School District confirmed that Lopez is currently enrolled as a student at El Dorado High School.
SISD’s Director of Guidance and Counseling Tammy Mackeben said the district has a lot of services for pregnant teens, and they urge students to reach out to a counselor if they need help or guidance.
For example, the district provides Pregnancy Related Services, or PRS.
Counselors will do regular check-ins with the student to make sure they’re ok emotionally and nurses will also check-in to make sure the student is ok physically.
The district will also provide academic services to the teen after they deliver, allowing teachers to visit the student at home and work with them until the student is ready to come back to school.
The El Paso Center for Children is another resource for pregnant teens.
“If the child’s family is not willing to accept that they’re pregnant, not willing to keep them in a home, setting up expectations around the pregnancy or the child that the child can’t live with, the emergency shelter is available to them to be able to come here if the family kicks them out,” Beth Senger, CEO of the El Paso Center for Children, said.
To contact the emergency youth shelter you can call: 915-562-4765. The center also provides STAR counseling for children ages 7-17. That number is 915-565-5021.
