Exposure (infant)

In ancient times, exposure, or exposition (both ultimately from the Latin expōnō, "to set forth, expose"), was a method of infanticide or child abandonment in which infants were left in a wild place either to die due to hypothermia, starvation, animal attack or to be collected by slavers or by those unable to produce children.

Following exposure, the infants usually died, were taken by slave traders, or were adopted by others.