Abandoned baby rescued from toilet

The heartbreaking moment a newborn baby girl was pulled alive from a public toilet has been captured on film.

The girl was abandoned in a public toilet in Beijing and fell head-first down the pipe, reports said, after her mother apparently gave birth in the facility.

Pictures show a traumatised police officer lifting the tiny infant to safetyfrom the toilet in the floor.

According to the Beijing Times, police received a call saying that some people heard the baby crying in the public toilet. Officers rushed to the scene and found a baby stuck in the toilet pipe leading to the sewer.

“The baby’s head was upside down and the whole body has fallen into the sewer. I could vaguely saw the baby’s feet from the side,” said police officer Qian Feng.

The baby was taken to a hospital in the capital but did not appear to have any physical disabilities, according to the report.

Blood around the lavatory bowl and the fact that her parents did not report her trapped indicated that she had been born in the toilet andabandoned there, it said, adding that police were trying to identify her parents.

Chinese babies born out of wedlock are sometimes abandoned because of social and financial pressures.

In 2013 a Chinese television report found that that more than 10,000 children are abandoned in China every year.

The country’s one-child policy can also mean heavy fines for couples who have more than one baby.

Incidents involving suffering infants have scandalised the Chinese public in recent years.

In May 2013, a newborn baby in the eastern province of Zhejiang survived after being dropped down a toilet conduit by the mother.

On that occasion the boy became stuck and rescuers had to saw away a section of the pipe with him inside.

The case triggered widespread fury but was later declared an accident.