Newborn Boy Found in Trash Bin

A newborn boy was recovering Monday after he was discovered in a Monrovia dumpster hours after his birth Saturday night, hospital officials said.

A man heard what he thought was a kitten while taking out his trash about 10:50 p.m. He discovered the crying baby wrapped in a plastic bag inside a trash bin behind an apartment complex in the 700 block of West Foothill Boulevard, according to the Monrovia Police Department.

The baby, only hours old, had been dropped into the bin headfirst, said Andrea Stradling, a spokeswoman for Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena.

Nurses at Methodist Hospital in Arcadia, who treated the infant first, nicknamed him Baby Andrew. He was taken to Huntington’s neonatal intensive care unit Sunday morning.

The baby was treated for skull fractures, hypothermia and dehydration, Stradling said. Doctors believe that his head injury will require no surgery, she said.

Neurological tests indicated that the infant was healing well, but he will remain at the hospital for observation for a week. “He’s really a very lucky little boy,” Stradling said.

Under a new state law, people can leave babies at hospitals without the fear of facing prosecution. No one, however, has left a baby at Huntington or Methodist hospitals since they established procedures for handling such cases, hospital officials said.

A door-to-door search for the mother was unsuccessful. Anyone with information is asked to call Monrovia police at (626) 256-8000.