Mother whose baby was lodged in sewer pipe likely won't be charged

Mother whose baby was lodged in sewer pipe likely won’t be charged

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Medical personnel take care of the five-pound baby who was stuck in a toilet pipe for two to three hours at the Pujiang People’s Hospital on Wednesday. Local officials said the boy is healthy. (AFP/Getty Images)

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The baby who was stuck in a toilet pipe sleeps in an incubator at the Pujiang People’s Hospital on Wednesday. (AFP/Getty Images)

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A newborn boy is rescued by firefighters from a sewage pipe below a squat toilet. A tenant heard the baby’s cries in the public restroom of a residential building in Zhejiang province in eastern China on Saturday and notified authorities, according to the state-run news site Zhejiang News. A video of the two-hour rescue was broadcast widely on Chinese news programs and websites late Monday and Tuesday. (AFPTV / AFP/Getty Images)

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Rescue workers break away bits of a pipe to remove the newborn boy. The child, named Baby No. 59 after the number of his hospital incubator, was reported safe in a nearby hospital. News of the rescue prompted an outpouring from strangers who came to the hospital with diapers, baby clothes, powdered milk and offers to adopt the child. (AFPTV / AFP/Getty Images)

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The newborn boy stuck inside a sewer pipe is revealed in the opening. The baby weighed 6.2 pounds and still had his placenta attached to his body, reports said. His heart rate was low and there were grazes on his head and limbs, but he was largely unscathed, according to Zhejiang Online, the province’s official news outlet. (AFPTV / AFP/Getty Images)

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A rescue worker reaches into the pipe segment. It was not immediately clear how the baby ended up in the toilet, but police said they were treating the case as an attempted homicide. The Pujiang County police bureau said on its official microblog that the boy’s mother has been located and that an investigation is ongoing. (AFPTV / AFP/Getty Images)

By Amy Hubbard

May 30, 2013 8:41 AM PT

In the case of a baby rescued from a sewage pipe in China, the mother likely will not face charges. Police reportedly have decided she made an error -- and wasn’t trying to dispose of her infant.

The newborn boy has been released from a hospital in the care of his maternal grandparents, according to the Associated Press. At first, authorities were calling the incident -- in which the infant was rescued from a 3-inch-diameter pipe below a toilet -- a possible attempted homicide. Now, criminal charges are unlikely to be filed, the AP reports, citing local sources.

The 22-year-old unmarried mother told police she had kept her pregnancy a secret and gave birth to the baby in the restroom of the building where she lived.

As the Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday, the woman said she did not try to dispose of the baby.

“She said she felt sudden pain and went to the toilet when the baby came out and slipped into the sewer pipe,” Zhang Jianbo, a local police officer, told the China Daily. “She said that she did not have money to raise the baby.”

The AP said the woman raised the alarm after the baby became stuck but also had cleaned the room of signs of a fresh birth. She did not come forward as the boy’s mother until two days later.

The infant, who came to be called Baby 59 for his hospital incubator number, was shown in video footage being freed from the small pipe with saws and pliers.

The images led to a horrified reaction across China, with a deluge of gifts at the hospital and offers of adoption, according to the Guardian. But the news site said there were also expressions of sympathy as fresh details came out. One man said on social media that as a father he knew how much children needed their parents, but “I think this mother needs help too.”

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