CHICAGO - ON Wednesday night, three families abandoned 11 children at Nebraska hospitals, as officials in the rural midwestern state scrambled to respond to a rash of parents giving up their children.

The abandonments - which included a family of nine children aged one through 17 - has brought the state's total to 16 children relinquished to state custody in 11 days.

Most of the children abandoned were teenagers. Officials are concerned that frustrated parents are misusing a new 'safe haven' law that prevents prosecution when children are abandoned in a safe place.

'The intention of our legislation has always been to provide a mechanism for children who are in immediate danger of being harmed to have a safe place,' said Mr Todd Landry, director of Nebraska's Children and Family Services.

'These were other situations where the parents simply decided to give up.'

Mr Landry told the wires it would be inappropriate and too early to discuss the reasons why the eight families chose to give up their children.

'We think that to a certain degree the media coverage of these earlier events contributed to some of those other incidents,' he said in a telephone interview.

The Lincoln Journal Star reported that a 15-year-old boy was abandoned on Sept 13 because his aunt could not handle his behavioural problems.

She had already turned his four siblings over to foster homes in the five years since his mother died.

Another woman was fined for dropping off her 14-year-old son at a police station after he beat up his 13-year-old brother, because only hospitals are considered safe havens, the paper reported.

Mr Landry said that while he 'empathises' with parents who are having trouble raising their children, 'there's a right way and a wrong way to deal with that.'

'We just want our families to use the resources in the community and not abandon their kids,' he said, adding 'we have a multitude of outstanding community agencies that stand ready and able to help parents with their children.'

Nebraska was the last US state to pass a 'safe haven' law, which allows parents to abandon their children in a safe place - usually hospitals and police or fire stations - without fear of being prosecuted.

The laws were enacted in response to a number of high profile cases in the 1990s of infants dying after they were left in garbage cans, abandoned cars, or places where they were exposed to the elements.

Many states grant anonymity to people who hand over infants at safe havens, but the majority only allow parents to abandon infants.

Nebraska's law, which took effect on Jul 18, has no such restriction, stating simply: 'No person shall be prosecuted for any crime based solely upon the act of leaving a child in the custody of an employee on duty at a hospital licensed by the State of Nebraska.'

Legislators are now working to revise the law in order to prevent older children from being abandoned.

Mr Landry held a press conference on Thursday hoping to get the word out to parents that while the law protects them from being prosecuted for abandonment, it does not absolve them of their responsibility.

Parents can still be prosecuted for abuse or neglect that happened before they abandoned their children, and they will still have to go through a lengthy legal process to formally hand over custody to the state. -- AFP