‘A new chapter of my life began’: A child of Japan’s ‘baby hatch’ speaks out

Kumamoto – Inside Koichi Miyatsu’s blue, child-sized backpack are neatly folded cartoon-print sweatshirts and a pair of white sneakers — all he has from before he was left at Japan’s only “baby hatch.”

He was only a toddler when he was placed in the hatch at a hospital in Kumamoto, where children can be left anonymously by desperate family members.