Police Still Seek Mother of Dead Abandoned Baby

Prince George's County police continued their search yesterday for the mother of a newborn girl who died over the weekend after being discovered alive in a black plastic trash bag, abandoned along a busy commercial corridor.

Officers gave out fliers in the 6300 block of New Hampshire Avenue in Takoma Park, the second day they returned to the place where the baby was found about noon Sunday.

Workers hired by a local business were clearing brush in a field and saw the trash bag moving, said Cpl. Clinton Copeland, a police spokesman. Emergency rescue workers rushed the newborn to Children's National Medical Center in the District, where the baby died.

The medical examiner ruled the cause of death as "environmental conditions," Copeland said. Just hours old and wrapped in a towel, the infant was a Hispanic female, police said.

The homicide unit is handling the investigation, which is typical in abandoned-baby cases, but police said the baby's death has not been ruled a homicide. Although authorities said they are focusing their search on the mother, whose identity they do not know, they are eager for any leads.

"We're looking for anybody -- the father, any relative, any family member, anybody who would know about this child," Copeland said.

Maryland is among nearly four dozen states where parents can relinquish an infant to a designated "safe haven."

Laws in each state vary, but the places where a baby can be left include hospitals, police and fire stations and, in some jurisdictions, churches. Texas passed the country's first baby-abandonment law.

Lisa Uncles, a certified nurse midwife and a clinical director at D.C. Developing Families Center, a birth and wellness center in Northeast Washington, said pregnancy is stressful even for women who are excited to be pregnant.

"We can't really make any judgments until we find out who she is," Uncles said of the mother.

Copeland said the county has not had an abandoned-baby case since 2006. In that instance, police never found the mother, but the baby survived and was turned over to county social services, he said.