Seoul's only baby box sees placements dwindle as 'protected childbirth' laws, counseling offer more options

At Jusarang Community in Gwanak District, southern Seoul, home to the capital’s only baby box, newborns are now a rare sight.

Just 26 babies were entrusted with the local organization last year, the lowest number since 2011, when there were 35. It’s a surprising decline, considering the figure once peaked at 253 in 2014.

Baby hatch placements drastically decreased amid Korea’s “protected childbirth” and birth notification laws, which took effect in July 2024. The latest system aids pregnant women facing economic, psychological or social hardship to give birth anonymously under a medical institution’s proper care. The goal is to prevent unassisted childbirths and ensure that every birth is swiftly reported to the government.

This year, through the end of April, there were nine infants left at the baby box. Two of them were referred to the protected childbirth system and five returned home, which Jusarang Community, a local organization founded by pastor Lee Jong-rak that provides support to vulnerable mothers and their children, explained was the result of expanded counseling.

When this Korea JoongAng Daily reporter opened the baby box during a visit to the facility on May 11, Beethoven’s “Für Elise” (1810) began to ring — an automatic alert notifying workers that a baby has arrived. In the case of actual placement, the baby would be in safe hands within 10 seconds, and the parent would be greeted by a counselor rushing out to meet them. Though such occasions have become far less frequent these days, to workers at Jusarang Community, the melody prompts a Pavlovian response.

The wooden flight of stairs leading up to the hatch is adorned with phrases such as, “A counselor is waiting to help mothers and children,” “Consultation guides mothers and children toward safety” and “Thank you for choosing to protect your baby.” The inside of the baby box is cozily lined with soft bedding and fitted with an electric heating pad and an air conditioning system that switches on depending on the weather. The overall interior means to convey a sense of solace to troubled mothers, that everything would be alright.

The nursery inside the facility is empty, but muffled conversations could be heard from the counseling room for parents who bring in babies.

“While we are receiving fewer infants now, the number of phone calls seeking consultations has barely decreased,” a team manager at Jusarang Community, who asked for anonymity, told the Korea JoongAng Daily during this visit. “We still see around 1,000 counseling sessions a year, give or take.”

Jusarang Community recorded as many as 2,464 consultation appointments during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2021. The figure later settled to 1,045 sessions in 2024, 958 last year and 546 through the end of April this year.

“A lot of the mothers that visit us tend to be unaware of the existence of the protected childbirth system,” the manager said. “They’re still terrified to leave records of their pregnancy at a hospital, which is why our job is to reassure them and inform them of the new system.”

A cry for help

Leaving a child at Korea’s baby box once almost invariably meant giving the baby up.

When pastor Lee first installed the baby hatch in 2009, nearly every infant left there was sent to a social welfare facility or placed for adoption for at least the next decade, according to data released by Jusarang Community.

For the first three years, fewer than half of the parents received counseling from the organization, effectively leaving little room for parents to reconsider taking the child back.

But now, most parents seek the baby hatch as a cry for help — viewing Jusarang Community as more of a consultation center. The most frequent response from mothers are thank-you messages expressing gratitude that they are not alone thanks to the organization’s help.

The average consultation rate among parents who left their babies from 2023 to 2025 reached a whopping 97 percent.

“Most of the time, single mothers struggling financially or emotionally are in urgent need of support, which we provide before moving on to the lengthy, administrative process,” the manager said. “But because the protected childbirth system tends to be the opposite, mothers feel reluctant to rely on the government.”

The majority of the infants brought into the baby hatch are born out of wedlock, standing at 78.8 percent in 2024 and 69.2 percent last year.

Over time, in addition to offering counseling sessions, the organization has provided necessities such as diapers, food, housing and living expenses to those in need. That, in turn, led to a gradually larger share of baby box placements returning home — in the 30 to 50 percent range each year since 2022 — as opposed to less than 10 percent until 2015.

During the baby’s temporary care under Jusarang Community, mothers usually continue counseling and take time to sort out any housing issues or emotional distress, particularly postpartum depression.

Stuck in legal limbo

Korea’s baby box remains in a legal gray area as Jusarang Community is not registered as an official social welfare facility. Leaving a newborn at a baby hatch does not necessarily result in a criminal conviction, but in cases where indictments do occur, the court determines whether the parent has shown a willingness to protect the baby’s life through active communication with the organization.

Last year, a suspended prison sentence was handed down to a mother and father in Daejeon, where the court cited that they “unilaterally abandoned their child without undergoing sufficient consultation in advance” and initially treated the act as infant abandonment.

However, the parents in the Daejeon case were later given a reduced sentence.

“The defendants appear to have abandoned the child at a baby box where help was accessible, allowing the child to be rescued within a short period of time,” the judge said in an appellate court ruling.

Childbirth anonymous

As baby box placements can pose legal risks, this is where the protected childbirth system comes into the picture. Under the system, called the Special Act on Crisis Pregnancy and Protected Childbirth Support and Child Protection, the birth mother receives medical treatment and counseling, and her personal and medical information is documented and permanently preserved by the government. The new law expands the responsibility for registering a child’s birth not only to the parents but also to the medical institution.

After giving birth, the mother is persuaded to keep her child through a seven-day deliberation period. The decision to relinquish the baby is typically seen as a last resort, in which case the infant is transferred to a temporary child protection facility and authorities subsequently determine whether the child will be placed in foster care or put up for adoption.

The child may later request access to details about their biological parents, although debate remains over how much information can be disclosed in cases where the parents do not consent.

Numerous cases involving unregistered infants who were killed or abandoned had sped up the enforcement of the protected childbirth law. One example is a case in which the bodies of two infants were found inside a refrigerator at an apartment in Suwon, Gyeonggi, on June 21, 2023.

From 2013 to 2022, there were 1,185 cases of infant abandonment, with the figure reaching 178 in 2018, according to data released by the Korean National Police Agency.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare conducted 7,317 counseling sessions with 1,882 pregnant women from July 19, 2024, to the end of June 2025. Among them, 160 decided to raise their child and 107 chose to surrender their infant through protected childbirth.

A blind spot

The decline in infants being left at the baby box may reflect the intended effect of the protected childbirth system. And it’s exactly what Jusarang Community strives for.

“The ultimate goal is definitely for baby boxes to disappear naturally over time,” the manager said. “But as long as there are people who still need our help, we’ll keep operating the baby hatch because every single life counts.”

At the same time, however, a blind spot has emerged: the rising share of unassisted births.

Each year from 2018 to 2023, roughly 10 percent of the infants brought to the baby hatch had been born outside a medical facility, such as at home, a motel or a bathroom. But after the enforcement of the protected childbirth system, the figure quickly jumped to 23.1 percent in 2025 and already to 22.2 percent through April this year.

Jusarang Community views this as because there are still many mothers who are unfamiliar with the protected childbirth system and fear leaving their pregnancy records at a hospital.

“It’s important to make sure mothers are given the right information so they don’t feel pushed into making the wrong decisions,” the manager said. “Protecting both the child’s life and the mother’s safety is what matters most to us — and it’s during this process that the mother gains the courage to decide to raise the child herself.”

The organization said it recently received mainly babies with disabilities and infants born to foreign parents, most of whom are undocumented immigrants and are unable to receive hospital care, as the protected childbirth system currently does not cater to foreigners. Last December, one Vietnamese international student in Korea was charged with allegedly abandoning her newborn, leading to the infant’s death.

Jusarang Community previously helped an undocumented immigrant mother and her Korean husband, whose child had heart problems, by securing donor support to cover the baby’s hospital fees and assisting with the child’s birth registration. The organization also helped the mother obtain a legal visa to remain in Korea.

“We’re very thankful that more and more mothers are getting the support they require,” the manager said. “But there is still a social stigma surrounding single mothers. Many are constantly worried that their child will be bullied for not having a father. People need to realize that these children are a blessing — they were protected, not abandoned.”

BY SHIN MIN-HEE [[email protected]]