Prague - Two months ago a homeless person found a newborn in one of the garbage cans in Prague. The baby was rushed to a hospital in a critical condition with body temperature of mere 25 degrees.
A few days before Christmas, the baby and his brave fight for life grabbed the headlines of Czech media and soon became the darling of the Czech public that folowed the story very closely in the Christmas holiday days off.
A number of families offered to adopt the baby, calling the hospital and media at that time.
The boy, later named Vendelín Čtvrtek (meaning Thursday, the day he was found) by nurses has been in the care of now officially adoptive parents.
The time-limit set legally for still unknown biological parents to claim their right to the baby ran out yesterday at midnight.
Little progress so far
Police marked placing the baby in a garbage can as an attempted murder and has recently admitted little progress has been made so far.
"There hasn't been any turning point in the investigation process," said the Prague police spokeswoman Iva Knolová. "We don't know the identity of the mother nor who put the child in the garbage can."
"We have some clues we are ready to check," Knolová added. "However an underage person is in question, that´s why we cannot provide any information," explained Knolová.
"Of course, there is always a little chance to find the biological parents," she readily added.
Nevertheless, people experienced at handling the issue of abandoned children agree that similar cases are usually hard to resolve.
Babyboxes: not almighty
One of the more stunning aspects of the abandoned child issue is that the infant was thrown away in a place not far away from a babybox.
Babyboxes is a recently introduced measure aimed at preventing the very same cases - it is a box where a mother can leave her newborn child anonymously, while avoiding to commit a crime. The baby is eventually taken over by the staff of a hospital.
Since 2005, six babyboxes have been established in the country and the number is expected to grow.
Up until now, there have been eleven cases of mothers using these facilities, with the very last case taking place coincidentally today.
"I am shaken. It [Vendeln's case] proves that babyboxes are not almighty," said Ludvík Hess, the president of one of the organizations that install babyboxes in the Czech Republic.
A new family
Vendelín owes his life not only to the founder, but also to staff in the hospital in Krč, Prague. While being pampered by the hospital nurses, the Prague's municipality had selected four out of ten couples that expressed their interest in adopting little Vendelín.
Adoptive parents needed to reconcile with the unknown child's anamnesis.
At the end of January, the couple came to see the baby in the hospital. "Initially, they seemed a bit undecided and hesitant," informed Jaroslava Lukešová from the hospital's infantile ward.
"However, on their second visit, they were firmly determined," said Lukešová. They took the baby home the next day despite the possibility of biological parents appearing and claiming the child.
