A hospital in Sumida Ward, Tokyo, said Thursday that 20 infants have been left in the baby hatch since it opened in March last year.
San-ikukai Hospital opened the baby hatch on March 31, 2025. It is designed to anonymously accept infants up to four weeks old whom their parents are unable to raise.
The hospital said most of the infants were left at the facility within 24 hours of birth.
Additionally, 20 women sought care under the "confidential birth" system — where the mother reveals her identity only to designated staff — and seven of them gave birth.
The baby hatch at San-ikukai Hospital is the second to be set up in Japan. The first one, “Konotori no Yurikago” (stork’s cradle), was opened by Jikei Hospital in Kumamoto City in 2007. As of last year, about 170 abandoned infants have been placed in its care.
San-ikukai Hospital is operated by a social welfare corporation which runs 16 medical facilities in the Kanto region. It has obstetrics and pediatrics departments, and is also designated as a Tokyo Regional Perinatal Maternal and Child Medical Center.
According to San-ikukai, a special room is set up on the first floor of a ward as a place to leave babies in a basket.
The hospital will take care of the babies for a certain period of time, and then the child consultation center will take the lead in connecting them to infant homes or foster parents.
The need for a baby hatch in Tokyo has been growing for several years in response to an increase in unwanted pregnancies from women suffering from poverty or abuse, as well as cases of abandoned babies.
© Japan Today
10 Comments
Login to comment
sakurasuki
20 souls being saved, Japan just started in 2025?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neonatal_abandonment_in_Japan
At least those 20 lives not end up like this
https://japantoday.com/category/crime/21-year-old-woman-arrested-on-suspicion-of-abandoning-newborn-baby's-body-on-balcony
or this.
https://japantoday.com/category/crime/23-year-old-woman-arrested-for-abandoning-newborn-baby-in-osaka-park
Ray
Incredibly sad dilemma for any country to face.
TaiwanIsNotChina
Isn't it better for babies to be had?
virusrex
These kind of efforts are too limited and lack proper support, unfortunately it infringes on social taboos and prejudices that are difficult to break.
MarkX
I really can't see how anybody could be against this kind of program, not only were 20 infants spared cruelty or death possibly, but another 20 women were also counselled and maybe they too were able to do what was right for their unborn baby. I just wish that the babies would be given to families that really wanted to have children but were not able to. Why keep them in foster care, when there are other options
sakurasuki
@virusrex
Japan isn't ideal for family but for non-married salaryman.
Abe234
its good they have this for people who are so desperate.sadly it does reflect on a society that maybe can’t help someone so desperate. But at this time, it appears to help everyone. The mother, the child and potentially the adoptive parents. Maybe something that should be emulated in all prefectures. There really is no excuse NOT to.
virusrex
Neither.
YeahRight
This story is such much better than the all too frequent stories of mothers leaving their babies in a toilet or somewhere else to die. It needs to be implemented in more than two hospitals in Japan.
tora
A city of 15 million should be doing more though. And there is no excuse for all cities not to be implementing similar schemes.