The mother of the Chinese new-born found trapped in a sewer pipe claimed she fell pregnant following a one night stand - and then the father of the baby boy abandoned her.
The 22-year-old woman - who has not been named – also said she could not afford an abortion or cope with the stigma of being a single mum.
Chinese media said she went to the shared bathroom in a residential complex when she felt abdominal cramps last Saturday and gave birth.
Baby 59 left hospital last night with his maternal grandparents, where his condition was said to be stable
Being nursed back to health: The abandoned baby
boy is pictured being fed in hospital after firefighters rescued him
from a sewage pipe after he was apparently flushed down a toilet in
Jinhua, Zhejiang Province
Reunited: The baby boy's mother - believed to be
a 22-year-old single woman - has been found and is said to be with her
baby in hospital
The 22-year-old woman is believed to have raised
the initial alarm but only confessed to police after they searched her
rented room
She also claimed she was the first to raise the initial alarm and the watched the entire two-hour rescue in secret.
'The girl told the landlord she had heard a ‘kitten-like’ sound in the fourth-floor squat toilet. The landlord later called the police and fire fighters for help,’ one of the investigating police officers in the eastern city of Jinhua told the Daily Mail.
Police are still investigating if her version of the harrowing events were true or if the infant boy was dumped intentionally into the 10cm/four inch sewer pipe.
The woman, a restaurant worker, reportedly confessed to being the mother after officers found blood-stained tissues and toys in her room and asked her to undergo a medical check.
A nurse said the baby boy - who weighs 6lb 2.8oz - suffered a fracture to his skull but is now in a stable condition
Staff at the Pujiang County People's Hospital in
Jinhua, Zhejiang Province, said well-wishers have visited the hospital
with diapers, baby clothes and powered milk for the child
Recovering: The baby boy has been nicknamed number 59 after the number of his incubator
The woman said she had sex with a man and didn’t realize she was pregnant until early January.
She was too scared to tell her parents so hid her pregnancy by wearing loose clothes and wrapping cloth tightly around her abdomen.
The man she claims is the father has denied it is his baby, according to media reports.
Video of the two-hour rescue of ‘Baby No 59’ – so named because of his incubator number in the hospital – have been shown worldwide, prompting both horror and an outpouring of charity on behalf of the newborn.
Harrowing: Firefighters work to free the unwanted baby from the pipe in Pujiang, Zhejiang Province, China
Fight for survival: The newborn baby was rescued by firefighters after being flushed down a toilet
At a public toilet on the fourth floor
firefighters were able to hear faint cries and, exploring further,
spotted the baby's foot deep inside the pipe
'The mother is sick with a high fever. Her parents are now with her at the hospital. Who will care for the baby has yet to be decided,' said the police officer.
Fire fighters were called to the residential building to rescue the baby, which was trapped in the L-joint of a sewage pipe attached to a squat toilet.
Officials were shown removing the pipe from a ceiling using pliers and saws to gently pull the pipe apart.
Fearing they may harm the boy, they took him to hospital still trapped in the pipe, and doctors then carefully cut him free.
The baby, who weighed 2.8 kilograms (6 pounds, 2.8 ounces), had a low heart rate and some minor abrasions on his head and limbs, but was mostly unhurt, according to local reports. The placenta was still attached.
Unbelievably, the baby survived the ordeal, which saw him having to be cut out of a pipe
Firefighters received a call from a landlady of a
block of flats saying that she thought a baby was trapped in a toilet
pipe in the building as she had heard it crying
News of the rescue also prompted an outpouring of help from locals who came to the hospital armed with nappies, baby clothes, powdered milk and even offers to adopt the child.
Nurse Zhang Songhe told the Daily Mail that the mother of the baby was with him in hospital. ‘I don’t know the reason she abandoned the baby.
‘We’re going to take care of the baby. We are not sure when the baby can be discharged.’
She added: 'When the baby arrived here, he was in critical condition.
'We suspect he has a fracture in the top right section of his skull. But now everything has been stabilized.'
The firefighters worked quickly to dismantle the pipe and rescue the trapped youngster, who was heard wailing
Firefighters gently carried away the section of pipe that contained the terrified baby
The landlord of the building in Pujiang county told Zhejiang News that it was unlikely the birth took place in the restroom because there was no evidence of blood and she was not aware of any recent pregnancies among her tenants.
The baby was stuck in an L-shaped portion of the sewage pipe with a diameter of about 10 centimeters (3 inches).
There are many reports in Chinese media of
babies being abandoned, often shortly after birth, making this incident a
distressing but common occurrence
Doctors carefully cut around the sewage pipe to rescue the baby boy inside
His eyes, face and body were covered in the filth of the pipe.
There are frequent reports in Chinese media of babies being abandoned often shortly after birth, a problem attributed variously to young mothers unaware they were pregnant, the birth of an unwanted girl in a society which puts greater value on boys or China’s strict family planning rules.
The case has been widely discussed on China’s Twitter-like service Sina Weibo due to the graphic nature of the footage, with calls for the parents to be severely punished.
Firefighters and doctors rescue an abandoned
newborn baby boy by cutting away a sewage pipe piece by piece, in this
still image taken from video, in Jinhua city, Zhejiang province May 25,
2013
People have angrily reacted to the news, demanding the parents be punished and denouncing their cruel act
The child is in a stable condition and the police are looking for his parents, Chinese state television reported
The abandoned child has been named Baby No 59 from the number of his incubator, according to reports
Nurses treat the baby, who was believed to be only a few days old when he was flushed away
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