1 Dept of Pediatrics and Child Health and Dept of Social Services, Howard University Hospital, 2041 Georgia Ave, NW, Washington, DC 20060
To the Editor.
It is a tragic realism that many hospitals in major cities in this country are having to care for newborn babies and infants abandoned by their biologic parents and immediate relatives. The problem of child abandonment is not an entirely new one for hospitals; it is the explosive increase in the frequency of occurrence and the escalating numbers of these infants in recent times that make it an issue that urgently needs to be addressed.