Mother raised alarm that saved baby stuck in pipe
By Li Qian |
May 30, 2013, Thursday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
THE mother of a baby boy rescued from a toilet sewer pipe raised the alarm and was present throughout the two-hour rescue.
The 22-year-old single woman won't face prosecution, police in Zhejiang Province's Pujiang County said yesterday, after ruling the incident an accident.
They said she didn't admit to being the mother until she was confronted by officers who found baby toys and blood-stained toilet paper in her rented apartment in the building where Saturday's rescue took place.
She told them the child was conceived during a one-night stand with a local man who refused to accept responsibility after she told him she was pregnant.
Afraid of her parent's reaction and too poor to seek an abortion, she had worn loose clothing to hide the pregnancy.
On Saturday, she went into labor and delivered the baby in the public toilet down the hall from her apartment. The baby, with placenta still attached, slipped down the toilet before she could grab it, she told police.
She immediately told her landlady she had heard a baby crying in the toilet. Firefighters were called and spent two hours sawing off an L-shaped pipe to retrieve the baby stuck inside.
Throughout the ordeal the mother expressed concern for the baby without revealing he was her son.
The baby, weighing 2.8 kilograms and with the placenta still attached, was found to have a low heart rate and minor abrasions but was otherwise healthy.
After the rescue, police began a search for the parents among tenants in the building and zeroed in on the woman on Monday night. When confronted, she fell on her knees and cried, begging police not to contact her parents for fear of being beaten.
She said she had never meant to hurt the baby.
A video of the rescue of Baby No. 59 - so named by nurses because of the number of his incubator at the Pujiang People's Hospital - was shown on news programs and websites around the world.
In the video, people are shown removing the pipe from a ceiling just below the restroom and then, at the hospital, staff using pliers and saws to gently pull apart the pipe, which was about 10 centimeters in diameter.
News of the baby's ordeal was met with an outpouring of horror and pity by bloggers on Chinese social networks.
Some came to the hospital to volunteer infant formula, clothes and diapers for the baby. There were even offers of adoption.
The Zhezhong News, a local newspaper, said the mother was a high school graduate who worked in a local restaurant.
Police said the woman was in serious condition due to complications from the delivery.
Authorities are still looking for the baby's father.
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.
In China, unwanted pregnancies have been on the rise because of a lack of sex education and an increasingly lax attitude toward sex.
Chinese sociologist Li Yinhe told AP that more than 70 percent of China's young adults have had premarital sex but that schools across the country typically shy away from sex education and contraception advice.
The 22-year-old single woman won't face prosecution, police in Zhejiang Province's Pujiang County said yesterday, after ruling the incident an accident.
They said she didn't admit to being the mother until she was confronted by officers who found baby toys and blood-stained toilet paper in her rented apartment in the building where Saturday's rescue took place.
She told them the child was conceived during a one-night stand with a local man who refused to accept responsibility after she told him she was pregnant.
Afraid of her parent's reaction and too poor to seek an abortion, she had worn loose clothing to hide the pregnancy.
On Saturday, she went into labor and delivered the baby in the public toilet down the hall from her apartment. The baby, with placenta still attached, slipped down the toilet before she could grab it, she told police.
She immediately told her landlady she had heard a baby crying in the toilet. Firefighters were called and spent two hours sawing off an L-shaped pipe to retrieve the baby stuck inside.
Throughout the ordeal the mother expressed concern for the baby without revealing he was her son.
The baby, weighing 2.8 kilograms and with the placenta still attached, was found to have a low heart rate and minor abrasions but was otherwise healthy.
After the rescue, police began a search for the parents among tenants in the building and zeroed in on the woman on Monday night. When confronted, she fell on her knees and cried, begging police not to contact her parents for fear of being beaten.
She said she had never meant to hurt the baby.
A video of the rescue of Baby No. 59 - so named by nurses because of the number of his incubator at the Pujiang People's Hospital - was shown on news programs and websites around the world.
In the video, people are shown removing the pipe from a ceiling just below the restroom and then, at the hospital, staff using pliers and saws to gently pull apart the pipe, which was about 10 centimeters in diameter.
News of the baby's ordeal was met with an outpouring of horror and pity by bloggers on Chinese social networks.
Some came to the hospital to volunteer infant formula, clothes and diapers for the baby. There were even offers of adoption.
The Zhezhong News, a local newspaper, said the mother was a high school graduate who worked in a local restaurant.
Police said the woman was in serious condition due to complications from the delivery.
Authorities are still looking for the baby's father.
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.
In China, unwanted pregnancies have been on the rise because of a lack of sex education and an increasingly lax attitude toward sex.
Chinese sociologist Li Yinhe told AP that more than 70 percent of China's young adults have had premarital sex but that schools across the country typically shy away from sex education and contraception advice.
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