The sleeping infant, which had been rescued from the sewer pipe in a residential building is seen at a hospital in Jinhua, east Chinas Zhejiang province.Picture: Imaginechina/Corbis Source: Supplied
THE fall of a newborn baby into a toilet pipe in China was accidental and his mother won’t be prosecuted, officials say.
The newborn – who survived – fell into the squat toilet and became stuck in a pipe just 10cm in diameter on Saturday in Jinhua in the eastern province of Zhejiang.
Local officials say the boy’s 22-year-old unmarried mother had kept her pregnancy secret and gave birth unexpectedly when she went to the toilet on Saturday.
The woman claimed she fell pregnant following a one night stand – and then the father of the baby boy abandoned her.
She also said she could not afford an abortion or cope with the stigma of being a single mum, The Daily Mail reports.
Chinese media said she went to the shared bathroom in a residential complex when she felt abdominal cramps last Saturday and gave birth.
But she said the baby slipped into the sewer pipe and she was unable to free him.
She also claimed she was the first to raise the initial alarm and the watched the entire two-hour rescue in secret
“Our investigations showed it was an accident,” a local police officer told AFP, and confirmed the mother won’t be prosecuted. She refused to give further details.
From the time he was found until when he was taken out, the 2.3kg baby was stuck in the tube for two to three hours, authorities and media reports said previously.
He suffered some cuts to his face and limbs and was put in an incubator at the Pujiang People’s Hospital, they said, where nurses dubbed him “Baby No.59″ after the machine’s number.
The head of the hospital, Wu Xinhong, said the infant was healthy and ready to be released.
“His condition is good but his relatives have not come to pick him up yet,” he told AFP.
The incident triggered hundreds of thousands of comments on China’s hugely popular weibos, services similar to Twitter, with users astonished by the circumstances and expressing good wishes for the baby.
Police have said the mother was in a serious condition due to complications from the delivery, while authorities were still looking for the baby’s father.
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Toilet baby mum raised alarm
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