Chinese Police Rescue Abandoned Baby From Toilet Pipe

Local residents of western Beijing heard a baby crying and followed the sound all the way to the bathroom, where they found the baby trapped in a pipe under a lavatory. The incident was reported to the Chinese authorities and police officers arrived at the scene immediately, The Guardian said.

The police officer, Qian Feng, who rescued the baby said: "The baby's head was pointing downwards and her whole body had already fallen into the drain. We could only see the baby's feet from the side," reported by the Guardian. After the rescue, the baby was wrapped with a blanket and taken to a hospital to receive medical care and recover from her trauma. It is reported that the baby's condition is stable. The authorities are still looking for the mother, who gave birth in the bathroom and left the baby trapped in the pipe.

It is estimated that every year more than 10,000 Chinese babies are abandoned by their parents. Recently, Chinese media reported a similar, shocking incident, where an abandoned baby boy weighing more than 5 pounds was found trapped in a sewage pipe. Firefighters reportedly worked for more than two hours to save the baby. Later, authorities were able to identify the mother who confessed to giving birth in the bathroom after the baby's father left her. She told the police that she had kept her pregnancy a secret, The Guardian reported.

In China families tend to prefer baby boys over baby girls due to the cultural notion that having sons is more advantageous than having daughters. The country's strict 'one child policy', which states that a couple can only have one child, puts more pressure on couples because they can only have a boy or girl, never both. So, in the past, most abandoned babies were girls. Parents would abandon baby girls so they can try again to have a boy. However almost all the babies that have been abandoned recently had physical disabilities like cerebral palsy or Down's syndrome, The Guardian reported.