A mother has been arrested after she abandoned her newborn baby with his umbilical cord still attached.
Belen Ramirez, 20, put her hours-old son in a stroller and dumped him on a street corner in south Los Angeles.
The discovery of the tiny baby – who was covered in sweat when he was found – kicked off a manhunt for his mother, which culminated in Ramirez’s arrest just after midnight near the University of Southern California campus on Saturday.
The baby – who is now in a stable condition in hospital – was found by a passer-by who noticed the stroller on Monday night. He assumed it was empty, but decided to check when he saw a blanket peeking out of it the following morning.
“Something inside me just told me to check,” the onlooker said. “I just never thought I was gonna see that. You just left him out on the street — threw him out like trash. Can’t do that to a baby.”
The street corner was across the road from a church that accepts unwanted infants.
Under Californian law, parents can surrender their child within 72 hours of its birth with no questions asked to any hospital, fire station, church or other approved location.
