A woman cut her friend's baby from her womb and left her uterus lying on a bathroom floor, having slit the expectant mother's throat so she could not scream for help, it is claimed.

Ashleigh Wade is said to have first slashed the voicebox of Angelikque Sutton, 22, before extracting her child in a grisly scene in the Bronx, New York. She reportedly told police she had "saved" the infant but denies first-degree murder.

Miraculously, the child survived, and is now nearing her second birthday.

The killing took place on Ms Sutton's wedding day and Ms Wade lured her friend to her home as she was making her way to a courthouse, the NY Post reported.

Bronx prosecutor Meredith Holtzman told jurors at the opening of Ms Wade's trial: "After she had rendered Ms Sutton unable to scream, unable to move, the defendant took a kitchen paring knife and sliced Ms Sutton’s abdomen open at the bottom half.

“Once she had cut Ms Sutton’s abdomen open, the defendant cut Ms Sutton’s uterus entirely out. She cut that uterus open, took baby Jenasis out, and discarded that uterus on the bathroom floor.”

Something "could have gone horribly and terribly and tragically wrong within Ms Wade’s own mind," defence lawyer Amy Attias said, adding her client did not "intentionally" kill Ms Sutton, who was almost nine months pregnant.

According to ABC7, Ms Wade had claimed she herself was pregnant, even convincing her boyfriend.