Fending off stiff competition from Czech babydumping startups, the Italians appear to have regained their longheld place as the technology leader in the baby dropping off industry.
See, for centuries, until around 1888, Italian nun-run orphanages like the Ognissanti Church in Padova used a ruota dei trovatelli, or foundling wheel, a lazy susan-like contraption mounted on the side of the building into which mothers could place their unwanted children [or, as they used to say in the Old Country, bastardi]. Then they'd turn the wheel around, ring the bell, then run like crazy.
But since the advent of the Dumpster and the public park bench, foundling wheels fell on hard times. So a few years back, a Prague health clinic developed a "baby hatch," which as also been adopted [sic] in Germany, with very positive results.
Not to be outdone, a Paduan right-to-life group spent a couple of years developing the high-tech culla per la vita ["cradle for life"] near the same old orphanage. The cradle works like a bank deposit window [minus the vacuum tubes, I imagine] combined with a weight sensor, an automated warming pad, and a direct signal for social workers to come pick up the little bundle.
One group estimates that only 400 babies are abandoned in Italy each year; the rest live with their mothers until they're 45.