Police believe they have found the mother who dumped her newborn baby in a western Sydney backyard last month.
A woman came forward this week who is likely to be the mother, but police are waiting on results of DNA tests for confirmation.
The hours-old baby girl was found naked, covered in birth fluids on a wicker chair in the backyard of a Blacktown home on Friday, April 21.
The family living at the Girra Rd house, unrelated to the newborn, told The Daily Telegraph they made the discovery after hearing faint cries on the back patio.
The baby was reportedly left on a cushion and attached to the umbilical cord when the family found her.
“There wasn’t a lot of blood, I think someone had definitely cleaned her up a bit before (leaving her),” Anne Carlos, whose family only moved in a week before, told the newspaper.
Mrs Carlos swaddled the baby in a towel until emergency services arrived and, as they waited, was instructed by paramedics how to tie off her umbilical cord.
“I couldn’t find anything in the kitchen, so I grabbed a shoelace and used that … then they (paramedics) talked me through how to do it,” she said.
The infant was treated by paramedics and taken to Blacktown Hospital. She is set to enter foster care with the Department of Communities and Justice once she is discharged.
Police have been desperately searching for the mother to check she is okay after giving birth away from a hospital. They insisted she was not in any trouble.
“Don’t be scared,” NSW Police Acting Inspector David McInerney told reporters after the incident, appealing to the mother to “contact us (police) or attend hospital or ring an ambulance.”
He said childbirth can be very “traumatic” and any woman that has given birth and abandoned their child within hours must need help.
“We are concerned about her health, safety and wellbeing and just want to help,” Sergeant McInerney said.
Weeks after the incident, detectives said they did not have a single lead on who the mother was and urged residents in the area to come forward with information.
Detective Inspector Jason Pietruszka told The Saturday Telegraphpolice “craved” answers about the case and believed they lay at the “grassroots level”.
“We want to know what has occurred, what’s the backstory behind it,” he said.
“It’s sure to be quite sad, tragic, but that’s why we are police officers, to find the truth so we can help.”
Police were reportedly looking through hours of CCTV footage taken around the neighbourhood on April 21. Inspector Pietruszka said because the baby’s features were not fully developed police could not determine her ethnicity in order to assist investigations.
“We are more interested in people in the community reporting anything that seems unusual, someone that is in trouble or acting out of the ordinary,” he said.
He stressed that the mother would not have to take care of the baby if and when she came forward, but wanted her to know “there are options”.
“We want her to have the chance to be in the baby’s life in some small way, to have the option or at least just to know that her baby is doing well and for us to know that she is doing OK.”
The baby girl will eventually be adopted out if the mother is not found or does not want to take care of her.
On Friday afternoon, police confirmed that their investigations into identifying the parents of the baby were ongoing.
“As those inquiries are ongoing, we are unable to provide further information about the investigation, including the various lines of inquiry being conducted,” a statement read.
Anyone with information about the incident is urged to contact Blacktown Police or Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.