A new public-service announcement that the National Safe Haven Alliance in Indiana plans to make available to television stations across the state and in Louisville includes a toll-free telephone number that women can call to learn where they can leave their babies -- no questions asked!

The number is (888) 510-2229.

"The goal here is to reach out to those moms who may get up in the middle of the night postpartum and not know what to do and need to understand there is help out there and there is someone who cares," said the law's author, Sen. James Merritt (R-Indianapolis), who is featured in the TV spot.

The announcement was unveiled at the Statehouse yesterday, where supporters and families who have adopted children given up at "safe havens" celebrated the eighth anniversary of the law in Indiana.

Three-year-old Austin Gildea of Kokomo and 4-year-old Natalie Hammond of Fort Wayne blew out candles on a cake baked specially for the small party. The children -- both left at safe-haven locations by their biological mothers -- were the featured guests.

Natalie's adoptive mother, Theresa Hammond, said the 2000 law gives women one more option for coping with an unplanned pregnancy. "It takes a tremendous amount of love to relinquish a child," Hammond said. "My opinion of safe haven is that women are not neglectful by giving their children. They love their children so much they know they have to do something better for that child."

Natalie's biological mother gave her up at Parkview North Hospital in Fort Wayne after reading media coverage about the law. She was the first mother in the state known to have taken advantage of the safe-haven option. Brian and Eden Gildea adopted Austin after his biological mother made a similar decision. The couple had tried unsuccessfully for nine years to have a baby.

Since Indiana enacted the law, the National Safe Haven Alliance has recorded six lives saved in the state and 20 illegal abandonments, of which at least seven were fatal. All states now have safe-haven laws, which the alliance said have saved the lives of at least 1,000 infants nationwide.

Indiana's law allows a parent to give up an infant (who is less than 45 days old) confidentially at a hospital emergency room, police station or firehouse. The law protects the parents from arrest or prosecution for abandonment.

It also makes medical treatment and social services available to the birth mother and puts the child in the custody of the Indiana Division of Family & Social Services Administration, which places the infant in a foster or pre-adoptive home.

"Safe haven is for the young mother, the 20-something mother, the 30-something mother who loves the child, chooses life, but may not want to go through all the ramifications of selecting the adoptive parents," Hammond said. "They just want to have that child placed with a loving couple."