Source Article: http://www.news24.com/World/News/China-Newborn-rescued-from-toilet-pipe-20130528
Beijing - A newborn baby boy was rescued
from a sewage pipe in a Chinese apartment building after being flushed down a
toilet, state media said.
"Fortunately the baby survived. But the person [who abandoned him] is
still suspected of attempted murder," said an unnamed police officer,
according to the official news portal hangzhou.com.cn.
Residents in Jinhua, in the eastern province of Zhejiang, called firefighters after hearing the 2-day-old baby crying in the fourth-floor squat lavatory, the report on Monday said.
Attempts to pull him out failed, so rescuers sawed away a section of the 10cm diameter pipe with the baby inside and took him to a local hospital.
Firefighters and doctors spent nearly an hour taking the tube apart piece by piece with pliers and saws and finally recovered the newborn, whose placenta was still attached, the report said.
From the time he was found to when he was taken out, the baby was stuck in the tube for at least two hours, it added.
The 2.3kg boy suffered some cuts to his face and limbs and his heart rate was low at one point. He was put in an incubator and was in stable condition, the report said.
Police were still looking for his parents, it said.
Chinese families traditionally have a preference for sons, but babies born out of wedlock are sometimes abandoned because of social and financial pressures. The country's one-child policy can also mean heavy fines for couples who have more than one baby.
Residents in Jinhua, in the eastern province of Zhejiang, called firefighters after hearing the 2-day-old baby crying in the fourth-floor squat lavatory, the report on Monday said.
Attempts to pull him out failed, so rescuers sawed away a section of the 10cm diameter pipe with the baby inside and took him to a local hospital.
Firefighters and doctors spent nearly an hour taking the tube apart piece by piece with pliers and saws and finally recovered the newborn, whose placenta was still attached, the report said.
From the time he was found to when he was taken out, the baby was stuck in the tube for at least two hours, it added.
The 2.3kg boy suffered some cuts to his face and limbs and his heart rate was low at one point. He was put in an incubator and was in stable condition, the report said.
Police were still looking for his parents, it said.
Chinese families traditionally have a preference for sons, but babies born out of wedlock are sometimes abandoned because of social and financial pressures. The country's one-child policy can also mean heavy fines for couples who have more than one baby.
- AFP
This is one of those stories where if you told someone they
would think you were lying.
I can see how it is possible to be scared when having a
child in China as there are fines in terms of having a second child and that if
the child is born out of wedlock – meaning that the parents aren’t married, I
only found the meaning now – the parents might not have money or would be shunned
by family as the culture is unforgiving.
The fact that these people did this is insane. The fact that
they possibly had a good reason is disgusting. The point is that in this system
people have to survive and feel forced to do terrible things to be able to
survive.
Laws have consequences, for instance: The laws that are in
place to deter people from having multiple children in China has the possible
consequence of people devising cruel ways to get rid of children. The problem
is that the consequences of points that are placed as law are very rarely
considered – in their full scope – or are ignored completely until a problem
arises that needs to be fixed.
Real solutions have to be found, help us develop them here:
