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