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THURSDAY, Sept. 4 (HealthDay News) -- Apparently foiled by increased security at hospitals, strangers who abduct babies are finding opportunities for kidnapping at other public places or private homes, a new study suggests.
The kidnapping of babies by strangers -- usually women -- remains extremely rare. But the findings suggest that families and law enforcement need to be aware of the risk, said study co-author Ann Wolbert Burgess, a professor of psychiatric nursing at Boston College.
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"These people are still after babies," Burgess said. "They're getting them in residences or someplace in the community."
The study authors analyzed 247 cases of baby abductions by strangers in the United States from 1983 to 2006. All cases involved babies 6 months old or younger. No one officially keeps track of all such cases nationally, so there may be some incidents that the researchers didn't discover.
Between two periods -- 1983-1992 and 1993-2006 -- the percentage of abductions in hospitals and other health-care facilities fell from 63 percent to 32 percent, while the percentage of abductions in private homes grew from 29 percent to 49 percent. The overwhelming majority of abductors -- 96 percent -- were women. And almost all of the abducted babies -- 95 percent -- were found.
Burgess attributed the changes to increased vigilance in the health-care world. "We certainly have gotten a handle on protecting babies in hospitals," she said.
According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which collaborated on the study, the typical stranger who abducts a baby is a woman between the ages of 12 and 50, often overweight, and says she has either lost a baby or can't have one.
"The motivation is usually to try to repair a failing partnership," Burgess said. "Some of these women have their own children. It's not a matter that they don't have a child. They're in a new relationship and they're trying to keep the relationship together."
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