Woman has baby in Wal-Mart bathroom, leaves baby in toilet

<p>A woman gave birth in a Wal-Mart bathroom Sunday and left the baby stuck in the toilet, covered in trash and toilet paper.</p><p>The full-term baby, a girl, was pulled out at about 12:30 p.m. by three Wal-Mart employees and put in a sink. A customer started CPR until a Macon Fire Department worker arrived and revived the baby, according to a police report.</p><p>District Attorney Howard Simms said the mother, Amy Diane Shorter of Crawford County was charged with aggravated assault and cruelty to a child and was being held in the Bibb County Jail late Tuesday afternoon.</p><p>Capt. David Davis, spokesman for the Bibb County sheriff's office, said she is in her mid-20s and has other children.</p><p>Witnesses identified the mother, who was not at the store when officers arrived and was later found at her home. She was then treated at The Medical Center of Central Georgia.</p><p>"It's very sad, especially given the amount of help agencies there are out there," Davis said. He told The Macon Telegraph investigators don't know the mother's motivation for leaving the baby.</p><p>The state Division of Family and Children Services has stepped in, he said.</p><p>Jan Manley, director of the Elizabeth Home Ministries, a Macon maternity and teen parent home, said Monday she occasionally hears of baby-abandonment cases, but they are rare.</p><p>"It must feel like they have no alternatives to do something like that," Manley said. "They must not know about the alternatives or maybe, for some reason, don't know how to access them."</p><p>Manley, who is a nurse and social worker, said she had a phone call while at a previous job from a young, pregnant, desperate mother searching for help.</p><p>"She didn't know what to do or where to go," Manley said. "I think sometimes they do feel all alone."</p><p>In 2002, the Georgia Legislature created a "Safe Place for Newborns" Law to help prevent newborn deaths resulting from child abandonment.</p><p>The law says women do not face prosecution for leaving a newborn _ not more than a week old _ in the custody of an on-duty medical facility employee, agent or staff member.</p><p>The law requires that the mother show proof of her identity and report her name and address to the person she leaves the newborn with.</p><p>According to Ari Young, state spokesman for DFACS, 317 babies have been left at Georgia hospitals or medical facilities since 2003, as a result of the law.</p><p>___</p><p>HASH(0x1cdc108)</p>