Appeal to mother of abandoned baby April

LITTLE April sleeps in the arms of a caring nurse. Warm, secure and loved, she snuggles deep into her yellow jumpsuit, blissfully unaware that the gardaí have issued an appeal for her mother to come forward and claim her.

April, the name give to her by staff at Our Lady's Hospital in Crumlin, in Dublin, was found over the weekend outside the main door of a church in Kildare. She is believed to be less than a week old.

She is the third baby in six months to be abandoned in this country by their mothers. One little boy was found wrapped in tinfoil at a bus shelter six weeks ago, another little girl was found in a hold-all bag on the bonnet of a car last October and April was found wrapped in a towel inside a Marks & Spencers' shopping bag outside the main door of the Church of Our Lady's Nativity in Leixlip on Saturday morning.