Taking steps to protect newborns.

By Samantha Yale - Lompoc Record Staff Writer

Just three days after a newborn boy was kidnapped from Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital, Lori Barry gave birth to a daughter at Marian Medical Center in Santa Maria.

Recovering from the birth Tuesday at the hospital, her daughter Angelina Makaly in a bassinet at the foot of the bed, she looks like many other new moms — tired but happy.

Barry, a Santa Maria resident, said that after she arrived at the hospital Monday for her scheduled delivery, she spotted a security officer and thanked the guard for being there.

“Of course, coming in Monday, after an incident like that, your guard is up,” she said of the abduction in Santa Barbara.

Barry is not alone in having her guard up regarding baby abduction.

In northern Santa Barbara County, Lompoc Valley Medical Center and Marian Medical Center have numerous security measures in place, including ones geared specifically to protecting newborns from kidnapping.

Cottage Hospital, where the baby was taken, and which also has procedures to prevent baby abductions, has added extra security officers at the maternity ward in the wake of the kidnapping.

“If anything, I look at it as that won’t happen anytime soon,” she said.Barry said that while it’s unfortunate that incidents happen like the one on Friday, she feels that Angelina is well looked after at the hospital.

Leianna Patricia Arzate, 33, of Santa Barbara is suspected of kidnapping baby Julian, who was just five hours old, from Cottage Hospital Friday and driving with him to a residence in Santa Maria, where she was arrested. Arzate is facing felony charges including kidnapping, child abuse and first-degree residential burglary.

Santa Barbara police have said Arzate was captured on video surveillance at Cottage Hospital in the days before the abduction, wearing medical scrubs. People at the hospital said that Arzate told them she was a nursing intern, according to police.

Police have said Arzate left the hospital with Julian, whom she is not related to, in a white shopping-type bag.

Jim Raggio, Lompoc Valley Medical Center administrator and CEO, said the hospital has an infant-protection system that is similar to alarms at stores that sound when someone steals clothes. If the alarm goes off, the exterior hospital doors are shut. The system is tested every month, Raggio said.

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