Newborn Baby With Umbilical Cord Attached Found Dead Inside Drain; Bleeding Mother Hospitalized

The dead body of a newborn girl with her umbilical cord still attached was found in a drain near a farm in Malaysia on Wednesday.

The gruesome discovery was made after the child's mother admitted to police that she dumped the body in the drain after giving birth to a stillborn baby Tuesday. The unidentified woman, who was bleeding in the womb, is getting treatment at a local hospital.

"The newborn, with its umbilical cord still attached, was not breathing," Officer Kamarul Rizal Jenal told the Star. "We started an investigation after receiving a report from a medical officer at the Balik Pulau Hospital that a foreign woman was bleeding in the womb and believed to have just given birth."

Doctors became suspicious after finding a placenta in the woman's womb and alerted police. The woman, an Indonesian national in her 30s, initially refused to cooperate with authorities.

The woman later told them she gave birth to a baby girl and dumped her in a drain near her house.

"The woman said she planned to bury the newborn when she realized that the baby girl was stillborn after she gave birth in her bedroom at about 5 p.m. on Tuesday," the officer said. "However, when she reached the drain, she felt dizzy and the baby's body fell from her hands."

"The woman, who works as a caretaker, managed to return to her employer's home before she fainted in the kitchen," he added.

She was covered in blood. Her employer rushed her to a hospital.

Police said the woman was a divorcee and had no previous criminal records. Officers are on the lookout for her boyfriend, Free Malaysia Today reported.

The baby's body was sent for an autopsy after a Covid-19 screening.

The woman is charged with the clandestine disposal of a child's remains to intentionally conceal its birth. She will be arrested once she is discharged from the hospital.

In a similar incident in the country, a food delivery man found the body of a newborn baby inside a plastic bag dumped near the staircase of an apartment Wednesday. The body was sent for an autopsy to determine the exact cause of death. Authorities launched an investigation to locate the mother of the infant.