Summary
DNA tests show 'Baby Elsa' is the sibling of two babies, a boy and a girl, found in very similar circumstances in 2017 and 2019. Despite appeals by the Metropolitan Police, their parents have not been identified. The older children have been adopted and Baby Elsa remains in foster care.
ONS only published data until 2015, and that showed no babies were registered as abandoned for the previous three years. But academic researchers estimate the number higher, at about 16 per year - in analysis covering the period 1998-2005. The press reported on an abandoned baby in Hackney, east London, in 2020 - and another in Birmingham in 2021. Their mothers were eventually traced, several months later.