BOSTON -- Police are searching for the mother of a newborn baby found abandoned in a trash bag in Roslindale during the weekend.

NewsCenter 5's Jim Morelli reported that residents thought that they were hearing a cat crying in the night, but it was really an abandoned newborn boy.

"Baby Jordan" was alive, and was listed in serious condition at Boston's Children's Hospital. The Department of Social Services has taken emergency custody of the infant.

"She didn't know it was a baby. It didn't cry like a baby. It (sounded) like a cat," neighbor Patricia Mata said.

The baby was found Sunday behind a burned-out house in Roslindale by a neighbor, who found the baby in a trash bag and called 911.

"She went outside and she heard the noise. She came inside and she told my mom," Mata said.

The state has a safe haven law, which allows parents to bring their newborns to a police station, fire station, or hospital without fear of prosecution.

"That young woman yesterday could have gone to a fire station, police station or a hospital. They were all about a mile away. She could have walked in, handed the baby to a hospital worker," Baby Safe Haven spokesman Michael Morrissey said.

"It's pretty much a no question asked type of thing. At that point, we give the child the medical attention that it needed," Newton Police Department Sgt. Frank Eldridge said.

Anyone with any information was urged to call police.