Nebraska lawmakers moved on Friday to reform a law that has allowed children and teenagers to be abandoned in hospitals by their parents, health department officials said.

Dubbed the Safe Haven Law, the bill was passed in July and was intended to protect newborns and infants. But it has allowed children of any age to be abandoned by their parents in hospitals without fear of prosecution.

Embarrassed by the magnitude of the problem after 34 children -- mostly anonymous and aged up to 17 -- were handed over to the state, Governor Dave Heineman has called for a special session of the state legislature to revise the law and specify an age limit.

`Several of the children who have come into the care of the state came there because the parents have had difficulties in parenting them due to behavior issue,` the director of children and family services at the department of health and human services, Todd Landry, told AFP.

On one day in September, 11 children, aged between a one and 17 and some from the same family, were abandoned at a Nebraska hospital.

To date the state has taken in 34 children and adolescents, including five from other states including Florida, Georgia and Michigan.

They were placed with families and in foster homes. In the event the age limit bill is passed, a judge will decide on their fate.

`The law passed by our legislature early this year unfortunately has had some unintended consequences,` Landry said.

`The law was always intended to be a protection mechanism for newborns and infants. However the legislature didn`t reach a consensus on presumed age limit,` he added.

`Instead when they passed the law they simply left the definition of child undefined. As the result of that we`ve had the unintended consequence of a significant number of older children particularly teenagers that have been left in Nebraska hospitals.`

Now lawmakers are to debate a bill introducing an age limit of up to 72 hours, or three days, for abandoning newborns.

It will be voted on by lawmakers on November 21 and immediately signed by the governor if approved, Landry told AFP.

Linda Jensen, a nurse in the emergency department of the Immanuel Medical Center in Omaha told the USA Today daily that `some children know why they`re here. Some don`t.`

Another staff nurse in the hospital said she heard an abandoned child say: `I`ll be good, I`ll be good! I`ll be good if I can go home!`