The newborn baby rescued from a
sewage pipe in China has been taken from the hospital by police and its
maternal grandparents, officials said today.
The infant has been returned to his family after authorities decided he became trapped because of an accident.
The unnamed mother claimed she fell pregnant following a one
night stand - and then the father of the baby boy abandoned her.
The 22-year-old woman said she could not afford an abortion or cope with the
stigma of being a single mother.
Now,
the man has requested a paternity test and - if the baby is his - is
ready to discuss with the woman how to support the child, according to
an official in the Pujiang county propaganda office.
Scroll down for video. Warning graphic content
Baby 59 left hospital last night with his maternal grandparents, where his condition was said to be stable
New footage showed the baby boy with protective eye masks inside his incubator before he was allowed to go home
The footage shows Baby 59 in his incubator at Pujiang Hospital ahead of him being returned to his family
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
Police concluded that the 22-year-old
single woman faces no charges, deciding she did not initially step
forward because she was frightened, and that she gradually had a change
of heart and began to tell the truth, said the official.
Last night, his maternal grandparents
and police arrived at Pujiang Hospital to take the baby to a rural
location, office director Chen Pandong said.
'The
police department and the family member came together. This (was)
definitely (done) in accordance with our rules for leaving the
hospital,' added Chen.
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.
'When the baby was touched, his heart was still beating. And he was saved and taken to the hospital,' he said.
An
investigating police officer told the Daily Mail: '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.'
Police are still
investigating if her version of the harrowing events were true or if the
infant boy was dumped intentionally into the 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.
‘The woman said she felt too embarrassed
to call the police herself as a single mother and feeling under
societal pressure. Girls like her can are easy targets for public
criticism,’ the police officer added.
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.
The mother is now receiving care at the same hospital as her son.
'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 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.
Recovering: The baby boy has been nicknamed number 59 after the number of his incubator
Pujiang Hospital, where the child was taken by firefighters after his ordeal
Hundreds of thousands of Chinese
people took to social networking site Weibo to vent their fury at
the mother.
News of the rescue locals to go 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.'
Residents living in a residential
building in Jinhua in the wealthy coastal province of Zhejiang reported
the sound of a baby crying in the public restroom on Saturday.
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 3 inches.
The video shows rescuers sawing off a
section of the pipe along a ceiling that apparently was just below the
restroom.
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 raised discussion of China's lack of proper education about sex and birthing in many schools.
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
DAILYMAIL
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