The heartbreaking sight of a young homeless woman cradling a dead newborn baby caught the eye of a passerby in midtown New York City Thursday morning. This person notified the police once realizing the woman was holding a newborn that wasn’t alive.
According to the New York Daily News , the unidentified 22-year-old woman had given birth to the baby about 12 hours earlier. She was seen holding the dead baby boy on W. 46th St. near 11th Ave. It was during the morning rush hour at about 8 a.m. when she was noticed and police were summoned.
She told police that she had the baby just about 12 hours before they approached her there on the sidewalk. Emergency services were called, but the paramedics determined the baby boy was dead.
NBC News reports that the baby “ died on a sidewalk in Midtown,” but they also report the cause of death for the newborn is unknown. They report that the young mother was seen holding an “unconscious” baby, but it wasn’t until the emergency services arrived that it was realized the baby was dead.
The newborn will be examined by the city’s medical examiner for the cause of death and the young mother was taken to Mt. Sinai West. The police are investigating the death of the baby.
The mother will undergo an evaluation. Police have determined the woman had no prior arrests and at this point, she faces no immediate charges. This heartbreaking story sounds similar to another incident about 16 years ago.
A homeless woman in a wheel chair was found by homeless outreach workers holding a dead newborn baby, who was also a boy. The woman had open sores on her legs and was deemed “emotionally disturbed.” She had been living in the subway, she told police. She had found a passageway inside Penn Station.
She was also a resident of a local homeless shelter on and off. She couldn’t give the police an exact time of the baby’s birth or death, but police at the time believed the baby to be no more than a few days old. She said she had given birth to the baby boy somewhere inside the subway station.
Much like the homeless woman today, this unnamed woman was taken in for evaluation to a nearby hospital.
[Featured Image by Srdjan Randjelovic/Shutterstock]
