NEWS

Joachim Spitz, chairman of the ProKids Foundation, doesn't want to reveal much. The child's anonymity must be protected. But he does say this much: "The boy is doing well, he has no injuries, and is now receiving a lot of affection." The ProKids Foundation's baby hatch has been located at the Franziskusheim on Neckarstrasse in Villingen-Schwenningen since 2010. A child is left there approximately every two years. The last time was in April 2023, and now again, on the evening of June 23, 2025. The newborn was found quickly, says Spitz. "The procedures we defined together with the Franziskusheim and the German Red Cross worked perfectly."

No signs of abuse

An alarm is triggered when a baby is placed in the hatch. Integrated into the hatch is a crib that is monitored by a camera. Two staff members from the nursing home took the baby and provided initial care until the German Red Cross arrived and transported the child to the Schwarzwald-Baar Clinic.

A precautionary measure, Spitz explains, to ensure the baby is healthy. In this case, the child is doing well, and there are no signs of abuse. Nevertheless, it will remain in the intensive care unit at the hospital for the next few days, "simply because there is enough staff there to care for the baby," Spitz explains.

In the coming days, a foster family will be sought in cooperation with the youth welfare office, and eventually an adoptive family. However, it usually takes up to a year for the child to be adopted.

Seven children so far in the baby hatch

This is the seventh child to be left in the baby hatch in Schwenningen. The hatch contains contact information for local counseling centers and the ProKids Foundation. Only one mother has contacted him since the facility opened, Spitz explains. She had previously given the child up for adoption.

Spitz himself initiated the baby hatch after reading in the newspaper years ago that a dead newborn had been found in a plastic bag in a forest near Singen. "Something like that must never happen again," he decided at the time. The baby hatch at the Franziskusheim in Schwenningen cost around 30,000 euros, "but it was worth every cent," says Spitz.

He has followed the lives of all the children who have been given up so far. Almost all of them are growing up in adoptive families and are doing well.