Washington  - Lawmakers in the US state of Nebraska learned a few lessons earlier this year after a law they passed to protect newborn babies resulted in an unexpected number of teenagers being handed over to state custody.

After only five months of being in effect, the state's so-called safe haven law was revised on November 21 by the state legislature - meeting in emergency session - and immediately signed by the governor.

The revision limits the age of children that can be turned over to the state to 30 days.

The legislature acted at the behest of officials who said the law was always meant to protect newborns in immediate danger of being harmed.

When the law was enacted in July, Nebraska was following nearly all US states in creating a safe haven law to reduce infanticide and the number of infants abandoned in unsafe locations.

It allowed anyone to give up unwanted children at state-licensed hospitals without explanation and without penalty for abandonment.

However, while negotiating the bill, there were disagreements over the child's age limit.

As a compromise, the bill's authors simply wrote in the word "child," which by definition is anyone up to the age of 18.

From July until the revision in November, 35 children were handed over to state custody, but not a single baby was among them.

By early November, officials in Nebraska were shocked not only by the number of teenagers, but that several children had been brought to Nebraska from other states.

In one case, a child was brought all the way from Florida, a distance of more than 2,000 kilometres.

Some of the parents and guardians of children from other states said they turned to Nebraska after being unable to get help in their home state.

Officials said this revealed a largely hidden countrywide crisis among families with unruly adolescents.

Heartbreaking scenes described in news reports across the US sparked a heated debate about parental responsibility, teenage behaviour and state services.

In one case, described by Courtney Anderson, a social worker in Omaha, a woman repeatedly apologized to a 12-year-old boy before running out of the emergency room of a hospital as the sobbing youth begged her not to leave.

The people giving up children were not young, desperate and overburdened mothers, as envisioned when the law was drafted, and most of the children had behavioural problems.

Of the first 30 children turned over to Nebraska officials, 27 had received mental health services; 28 came from single-parent homes; and 22 had a parent or guardian who had been jailed, the Washington Post reported. Only a few were younger than 6.

A total of 24 parents or legal guardians gave up children.

One woman brought her two daughters and in one case a widower turned up with nine of his 10 children. He said his wife died in January and he could not raise the kids alone.

In the nationwide discussion about the law, questions were raised about the motives of the parents and guardians giving up their kids and whether the law simply made it too convenient and easy for them to be rid of rebellious and rowdy teenage children.

According to the Washington Post, most of the parents or guardians said upon giving up their children that they didn't know what else to do, either because of stress in their lives or because their child was mentally ill or they were no longer able to control the child.

Nebraska lawmakers have pledged to take up the broader problem once the legislature reconvenes in January, including more concrete solutions to the psychiatric problems of teenagers and the stress it causes families. (dpa)