A WOMAN in Austria has been sentenced to 18 months jail for poisoning two pregnant friends to make them miscarry, admitting she acted out of jealousy and depression.

Angela Maier, 26, told a court in Klagenfurt she was desperate to have a child of her own, but became depressed after suffering three miscarriages, according to the Daily Mail.

When Maier learned her sister-in-law and her best friend had fallen pregnant she said she was consumed with jealousy.

"I couldn't stand the thought of them having babies who would be growing up when mine was dead," Maier said. "Mine should have been with them as well, but instead mine died while theirs went on."

The court heard how Maier tricked the women into drinking medicine she was prescribed after her miscarriages.

According to the Austrian Times, the friend told the court: "I asked for a glass of water, and she said she had a special drink for pregnant women, that she didn't need any more. A short while later I started to bleed, and then I lost the baby. When I found out what she had done, I wrote back and told her she was a murderer. I can't forgive her."

Two months later Mainer used the same poison on her sister-in-law, mixing it with her hot chocolate, the victim said.

Both women suffered miscarriages.

Maier, who now has a three-and-a-half year old daughter of her own, confessed to her victims two years after the poisonings, when she learned both women were pregnant again.

The court ruled Maier was psychologically sound but accepted she had suffered from depression. She was sentenced to 18 months in prison, with 14 suspended.