SAM Daily Times

China Rescuers Save Newborn Child from a Sewer Pipe

A newborn boy is recovering in a Chinese hospital after being rescued from a sewage pipe. A tenant heard the baby's cry in the public restroom of a residential building in Zhejiang province in eastern China on Saturday and notified authorities.

The child named Baby No. 59 from the number of his hospital incubator was reported safe in a nearby hospital, and 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.

The baby weighed 2.8 kilograms (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.

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 account that the boy's mother has been located and that an investigation is ongoing, but gave no further details. 

The baby was stuck in an L-shaped portion of the sewage pipe with a diameter of about 10 centimeters (3 inches).

In China, reports of babies being abandoned are common and fuel public anger against a strict one-child policy that imposes huge fines on parents who violate the rules. The policy has been blamed as a factor causing parents to abandon unwanted children, though they are usually baby girls whose parents want sons due to a traditional preference for male heirs.