Baby found abandoned in Florida an hour after birth 

A newborn baby girl was found wrapped in a blanket on a hill outside a Florida trailer park on Saturday morning, authorities said.  

Police responded to a report of a baby crying in the Regal Loop Mobile Park Home near Mulberry, east of Tampa, at around 1:45 a.m., according to the Polk County Sheriff’s Office. When police arrived, they found the baby about an hour after she had been born, still attached to a placenta and with her umbilical cord. 

The baby was transported to a hospital, where she was given care and is now healthy and stable, the Sheriff’s Office added. First responders said the baby is fully developed and weighed 6.5 pounds. 

The baby was turned over to the Department of Children and Families. 

“It was by the grace of God that we found the abandoned baby girl when we did before exposure to the cold or any animals caused her any harm. She was left in an extremely vulnerable condition, but she’s a strong little girl, and it looks like she’s doing great,” said Sheriff Grady Judd.

Police tried to look for the mother by sending a K-9 unit and a bloodhound. However, they were unsuccessful. 

DNA samples were taken from the baby to try to track down her relatives. Judd added that the mother’s baby will be held accountable “because she left this child in the woods, ostensibly to die.”

Florida has a safe haven law that allows new parents to leave newborns at a fire station or medical facility up to one week after they are born. 

“You can literally walk up, hand that baby to a firefighter, and drive off, and never disclose who you are, and there’s no criminal liability to that,” Judd added.