Proactive infant security: how New Jersey hospitals reacted to a kidnapping incident.

A number of hospitals in New Jersey have taken steps to tighten security procedures to prevent infant abductions, including the use of electronic technology and efforts to further restrict access to unauthorized persons in their maternity wards. Highlighting the need for increased attention to safety and security, hospital and security officials say, was an abduction at St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center, Paterson, NJ, on August 20, 1997, in which a 16-year-old female allegedly took a two-day-old baby from a room while the mother was showering and left the hospital. The mother and suspect, according to police reports, had engaged in friendly conversation for about an hour. The mother then asked the teenager to watch the baby while she showered. When she returned, both the teenager and child were missing from the room. The baby was found unharmed by Paterson police later that night and returned to the hospital. The teenage suspect was arrested. In this report, we'll present examples of what other New Jersey hospitals, some part of healthcare systems, are doing to prevent similar infant abduction incidents at their institutions. In nearly all cases, officials at these hospitals report there has never been an infant abduction, but say preventive action has been taken to be proactive and improve the safety consciousness of staff and patients.