TISBURY — Hours old, deathly ill and soaked by a sprinkler system, Baby Vinnie was found wrapped in a cloth on the grounds of St. Augustine's Church in 2004.

He made an unexpected and speedy recovery and just as quickly became the catalyst that year for passage of the state's Baby Safe Haven law, which allows parents to leave newborns at designated safe spots without fear of prosecution.

The law would have expired next year, but legislators revised it this year, striking the sunset clause. Yesterday Gov. Deval Patrick signed it and made it permanent.

"We thought it would take six months. It took three years. We just never gave up" Michael Morrisey, who lives in Lexington and works for Wilmington Community Television, said about the permanent law.

He and wife Jean began advocating nationwide for safe haven laws after the couple helped make burial arrangements for Baby Rebecca, a newborn found dead in a Dorchester cemetery in 2001. Now, Morrisey said, 1,000 babies have been surrendered safely in the 48 states with safe haven laws.

The Department of Social Services thinks the program saves babies' lives and helps mothers avoid abandonment. Since the law passed, six babies — all of them only minutes or hours old — have been surrendered by mothers who left them with a person who could make sure they were safe at a designated location: a police station, manned fire station or hospital.

And in all six cases, mothers gave authorities the babies' medical histories, including background about hereditary diseases, and family information, according to Morrisey and DSS spokeswoman Denise Monteiro.

"I don't think I could have predicted it going this well," Morrisey said of the Massachusetts law.

Only two newborns are known to have been abandoned since the law passed. One, in Milford, died. Another, abandoned near Springfield, survived.

Officials in Massachusetts don't reveal that a baby has been surrendered until at least a month or more has passed, and they won't say exactly where newborns are found. That's so publicity won't scare away the next new mother, Monteiro said. Babies seven days old and under are considered newborn and covered by the law.

The best part of the law, Monteiro said, is the telephone hot line that allows mothers to call in for advice.

"When we set up the hot line, kids were calling left and right," she said.

At least 35 girls who called have been able, with emergency medical technicians and paramedics who staff the phone line, to come up with pregnancy plans, Morrisey and Monteiro said.

As long as there are no signs of abuse or neglect, parents using the safe haven law will not be prosecuted. And handing over her baby using the law, rather than merely abandoning it, gives a mother a better chance of reunion later on if she prefers, Morrisey said.

Parents with drug or alcohol addictions, very young parents and recent immigrants are the hardest to reach with information about safe havens, Morrisey said.

Safe haven laws do have some critics, among them an adoptee rights organization called Bastard Nation. The group has argued that the laws keep adopted children from learning the identity of birth parents by encouraging "baby dumping" and parent anonymity. But Morrisey said the positive results in Massachusetts and elsewhere disprove the group's argument.

Baby Vinnie, so named because he was found on Martha's Vineyard, was slated in 2005 for adoption by the foster family who cared for him after he came out of critical condition at Children's Hospital in Boston. The family, through DSS, declined to be interviewed, and no update on his current condition was available yesterday. He is now just over 3 years old.

Though there were several leads when he was abandoned, neither of Vinnie's parents has been found by police or turned themselves in, said Tisbury Police Chief John Cashin.

The Baby Safe Haven law allows frightened parents who might abandon their newborns anyway to give up their babies in a humane way, he said.