A mother who abandoned her newborn baby in a shopping bag on the side of the road has appealed to have the infant returned to her.
Mother-of-three Sandra Queiroz, 37, was arrested last week after she was caught on CCTV dumping her hours-old baby in an affluent neighbourhood in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Queiroz had given birth to the little girl in the bathroom of her employer’s home, where she works as a maid, wrapped the baby in blankets, put her in a paper bag and left her on the street.
She was arrested the next day as she walked her older daughter to school along the same road.
The bag containing Queiroz’s abandoned newborn.
The baby (pictured above with a hospital nurse) was found by a man on his way to church and taken to the nearby Santa Casa de Misericordia hospital and the circumstances of her abandonment made headlines around the world.
Queiroz has now pleaded for her baby’s return, saying she acted out of desperation because she feared she would lose her job if she had another baby.
“I am very sorry for what happened,” she said. “The pain I am feeling right now is much worse than the birth.”
