Police in Hokota, Ibaraki Prefecture, have arrested a 24-year-old woman for abandoning the body of her newborn daughter, with her umbilical cord still attached, by the side of a narrow road last Tuesday morning.
Police identified the woman as Miwa Sato, a part-time worker, who lives nearby with her mother and grandmother, Fuji TV reported.
Sato, who is single, was quoted by police as saying her mother and grandmother were out when she gave birth last Tuesday. She said she had no one to talk to and then her mind went completely blank.
A woman who lives nearby heard what she thought was a baby crying at around 6:30 a.m. and went outside to investigate. Her family brought the naked infant inside and called 110.
The temperature was about 12 degrees at the time and the woman said the baby had turned a purplish color. The child was taken to hospital and is in a stable condition, police said.
A male acquaintance of Sato, after seeing the news on TV, contacted police to say she might have been the person who abandoned the baby. On Friday, a DNA test identified Sato as the infant's mother.
Sato's mother and grandmother told police they didn't even know she was pregnant.
© Japan Today
22 Comments
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sensei258
You live with your mother and grandmother, and they didn't know you were pregnant? I don't believe that for a second.
sandhonour
This seems to be all too prevalent in Japan. When you fall through the cracks here you really fall through.
Kobe White Bar Owner
9 months pregnant is hard to hide even for a big big woman.It c o u l d be they dont want any of the blame, just my opinion.
Mocheake
Obviously an unwanted pregnancy but she could have handled the situation much better. How about the cops take her to a remote part of the country and drop her off in the cold with no money or transport so she can get just a small taste of the cruelty of her actions?
Gobshite
This woman needs help, not exposure in the media. As bad as abandoning a child is, I doubt she was in a normal frame of mind at the time.
SenseNotSoCommon
Not such a gobshite, @Gobshite! Too many want to crucify the poor woman.
lucabrasi
Yep, well said Gobby and Sense.
Nice to see a bit of compassion among the venom.
smartacus
I've actually heard of a lot of cases over the years where a woman's family didn't know she was pregnant even though they were living in the same house. It's weird but it does happen.
FightingViking
@Brainiac
I can also believe it - we had absolutely no need to try to "hide" my pregnancy, but it really hardly showed, right up to the birth...
zones2surf
Nice to have a follow-up story to the earlier story this week.
Again, very happy that the child survived. Obviously this child should not be let anywhere near the mother. At least, not anytime soon.
Completely skeptical about the mother and grandmother not knowing the woman was pregnant. I know it is theoretically possible, but just seems really unlikely. More likely would be that they just don't want to be involved. However, this will likely be clear in time.
As for the mother, I am not going to give her a pass at the outset. The starting place is that she abandoned her newborn baby in a manner that would likely have ended the child's life if not for the timely intervention of the woman in the neighbourhood.
So, if I am the cops investigating this, that is my starting point. I am not saying there may not be mitigating factors and that she doesn't need help; however, this is the same as "not guilty by reason of insanity", which I despise. It should be "guilty by reason of insanity." To this point, she did this. It is just a question of the factors that might argue for leniency and/or intervention for her issues.
Justice, but with some measure of compassion if, in fact, warranted.
TheGodfather
And the same DNA test will identify the father... :-)
toshiko
@GobshiteNOV. 07, 2015 - 05:55PM JST This woman needs help, not exposure in the media. As bad as abandoning a child is, I doubt she was in a normal frame of mind at the time
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I also guess she was not in normal size. Tall and skinny?
Mocheake
Not such a gobshite, @Gobshite! Too many want to crucify the poor woman.
She had nine months to decide on a course of action. Surely she was in a 'normal frame of mind' at some point during that time.It was a lucky thing the child was found. Another few hours and it would have surely died. Would your compassion for this woman be the same in that case?
nath
"abandoning the body of her newborn daughter" but the baby wasn't dead.
toshiko
A male acquaintance of Sato, after seeing the news on TV, contacted police to say she might have been the person who abandoned the baby.
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He might be the farger
Maybe baby was born on street?
misunderstood
Seems to be the typical excuse in Japan when someone does something stupid. I lost my mind or I was frustrated and these excuses seem to work.
SenseNotSoCommon
Absolutely, @Mocheake. Absolutely.
Our emotional response to this event is largely shaped by values which - in our countries of origin - provide reasonably funded and publicised care infrastructure for women and children in these circumstances.
Did this young woman have the same sexual education, awareness and access to support for her and her baby that her peers take for granted in many other OECD countries?
Unless the answer is a definite yes, she gets my absolute compassion.
interuni321
Obviously this kind of thing doesn't happen without good reason, let's hope the mother and baby end up getting the help they need.
Gobshite
@Magnus
I assume there are no people with mental / emotional issues from wherever you hail. Everyone has a wonderful upbringing, the skies are always blue, and there is a pot of gold under the rainbow. Correct? Without knowing the full facts you have condemned this woman, have you no shame?
SenseNotSoCommon
@Gobshite, your nom de plume is so unbecoming!