State police say incoming tips have slowed, but they're still tracking leads that may eventually bring them to the baby's mother, who likely gave birth between Dec. 24 and Dec. 29.

But then what?

If the mother did abandon her baby, whose body was discovered by schoolchildren on New Year's Eve, she could face homicide charges. That mother probably didn't know about a year-old state law that gave her the option of leaving her baby at any Pennsylvania hospital without having to give her name or fear prosecution.

Had she chosen that option, her baby might be alive, possibly on her way to an adoptive home. And her possibly secret pregnancy would still be secret.

When Pennsylvania lawmakers passed Senate Bill 654 into law, that they hoped it would put an end to headlines about newborns left for dead in creeks and Dumpsters.

But something went wrong.

"It's the state's neglect for not publicizing this law," said Tim Jaccard, who runs a Long Island-based program to save newborns from abandonment. "How does a program exist without advertising it?"

Since Gov. Mark Schweiker signed the Newborn Protection Act into law on Dec. 9, 2002, no money has been allocated to publicize it, and it's received little -- if any -- publicity since.

Officials at the state Department of Public Welfare, the agency responsible for publicizing and overseeing the law's implementation, admit nothing about the law has been posted on the agency's Web site in the last year. In fact, they aren't even sure any press release was distributed to announce the law since it was implemented more than a year ago.

"We should have stuff out there to tell women this program is available," said Carey Miller, spokeswoman for the Department of Public Welfare. "Unfortunately, we've been struggling with trying to find funding for the program. That's been a barrier in our way."

Legislators who supported the bill aren't buying that excuse.

"That is a bogus argument," said state Sen. Jeff Piccola of Dauphin County, who co-sponsored the bill but said he lost track of its progress after it became law. "The only issue we were discussing in the budget was the education portion, so the budget impasse is no excuse."

Jaccard and others in the business of saving children know the value of publicity. They blame Pennsylvania officials who pushed for a law but didn't follow up to make sure it was publicized.

In 2000, before Pennsylvania passed its law, Patricia Weaver founded A Hand to Hold, a Pittsburgh-area volunteer program similar to Jaccard's.

"This baby (found in Strasburg) is one of the costs of their procrastinating," Weaver said. "The government has dropped the ball here."

If her words sound strong, it's because Weaver scaled back her own operation so it wouldn't compete with the state's effort after the Newborn Protection Act passed.

"We were told that the state would start (a program) soon," Weaver said. "We didn't want to create any confusion with our organization versus a statewide organization that we thought would be started. And we realized that our major donors would not want to continue supporting us when there was a state effort."

So Weaver waited. And waited. But little happened after the law passed.

"I'm appalled," Weaver said. "The state's not doing their job. They know this is their responsibility, and they are fully aware the law went into effect in February 2003."

On the day the bill was signed into law, state Secretary of Welfare Estelle B. Richman was on hand to plug it.

"The mothers are fearful and isolated," Richman said in February 2003 at a Pittsburgh ceremony to unveil the law. "It's a very desperate act. A baby should not die because his mother is afraid. As of today, mothers in crisis will have an option."

But no one told them about it.

Miller said figuring out how to advertise the Newborn Protection Act has been difficult. Because of the sensitive nature of the topic, they don't want to promote baby abandonment, but they don't want newborns left in Dumpsters, either.

Miller also said the state's approval process for written publications is time-consuming.

In the meantime, Miller said, welfare department officials expected people to learn about the law "by word of mouth or reading it in the newspaper." But some legislators, who often plug legislative initiatives through their own avenues, are quick to take blame for not promoting this law.

"We were wrong not to publicize it more," said state Rep. Katie True of Lancaster County, who, like Piccola, supported the law but didn't realize the department of welfare had not publicized it. "They should have been getting word out about it right away. Had the commonwealth gotten the word out, that baby found in Strasburg might not have died."

Though the act was an "unfunded initiative" passed without money to implement it, True said low-cost publicity options are out there.

"I want them to show me in the budget how much it would cost and why they can't afford it," True said. "We can afford plenty of other things. Why not this? This is the very core of what we should be doing in government. Are we here to make things better in our communities or not?"

Miller said welfare department officials also hoped to harness the power of the press to notify the public about the law, but she didn't know if press releases were sent to the media.

"I'm pretty sure we did have a press release go out, but I could be wrong," Miller said. "I don't think we ever faxed them out. And I don't think we have any press releases on our Web site now, but we're revamping it so they are on there."

In fact, the welfare department Web site links to a list of press releases generated by various state departments, including scores from the welfare department. None mentions the Newborn Protection Act.

Even those likely to work with a mother in crisis, such as police officers and adoption agency workers, weren't officially notified about Pennsylvania's law.

Maria Delgado, a social worker at Lancaster General's Women & Babies Hospital, said she learned about the act from Harrisburg's Pinnacle Health, which contacted LGH to advertise its safe-haven program.

Overall, most Pennsylvania hospitals haven't promoted the safe-haven option.

"It's not the hospitals' job to advertise it," said Diane Gallagher of Community Hospital of Lancaster. "I don't want to say it's somebody else's job, but we are a caretaker location. We are doing our job."

But that still leaves an uninformed public.

"It's scary because we have people who don't know who to turn to," Delgado said. "We're trying to create awareness, but no formal advertisements have been in place at this point in time."

Weaver and Jaccard know the value of publicity, which they credit for the success of their programs. Jaccard's program, Children of Hope, has reached a national level, including operating a hotline that fields crisis calls for several states.

When the Pennsylvania law passed, both Jaccard and Weaver offered resources to help the welfare department, including free use of the hotline, printed materials and a public service announcement starring Patricia Heaton of "Everybody Loves Raymond." But both said they got no response from department officials.

"Promotion of the law is absolutely the key factor," Jaccard said. "And that's why my program works -- we're out there promoting it every chance we get."

Jaccard's hard work paid off, even in Pennsylvania, where his organization has helped eight birth mothers who saw his ads.

Jaccard said Pennsylvania's failure to publicize its law, though, is making juries reconsider how they penalize mothers who abandon their babies when they could have left them at a hospital.

"Now mothers have an option, but they don't know about it," Jaccard said. "They're finding the negligence of not knowing about the law is affecting juries. Prosecutors are saying to mothers, "You had an option and you didn't use it. You could have relinquished your child and no one would have said anything about it.'"

In the end, it took the baby discovered in Strasburg to make a difference.

After her story hit the headlines, True and Piccola were alerted by the Intelligencer Journal that the welfare department never publicized the act. Since then, Piccola requested welfare secretary Richman update him on the act's implementation.

"The publicity part of the bill was not a very extensive requirement at all," Piccola said. "They had more than enough time to take those steps. We just want to find out what their plan is for abiding by the requirements now that we're aware of their inactivity."

For the welfare department's part, Miller said brochures about the law are in the works.

In the meantime, mothers in crisis can get more information about Pennsylvania's Newborn Protection Act and help through Weaver's hotline at (888) 978-BABY.

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