Unwed mom denies killing newborn

A 22-year-old single mother on trial for murder last month denied an earlier confession that she strangled her infant son shortly after giving birth, prosecutors said Wednesday.

The defendant, who was not identified, stood trial for intentional homicide on September 27 in Minhang District People's Court, said Wen Tao, a press officer for the Minhang District Prosecutor's Office.

The court has not yet announced its verdict, according to a press release from the prosecutor's office.

In court, the defendant disputed the murder charge, arguing that her son died from negligence after she abandoned him in the bathroom where she gave birth, Wen said.

Her defense contradicted a statement that she gave prosecutors before the trial, in which she admitted to strangling the infant, according to the press release.

An autopsy report by the Shanghai Public Security Bureau's center of forensic sciences showed that bruises covered a large area around the infant's neck and mouth.

The report also ruled out negligence and the possibility that the infant was strangled by his umbilical cord. It concluded that the baby was alive at birth and had been strangled to death, prosecutors said.

Police arrested the defendant in January after she showed up at a hospital in Minhang district, where she told doctors her newborn baby was dead and she had abandoned him in the bathroom at her residence.

The defendant told police that the baby's father broke up with her after she found out she was pregnant in August 2012. She said she was too afraid to tell her family she was pregnant and feared she wouldn't be able to raise the baby by herself.

After she gave birth to the child, the defendant found that his eyes were closed and he wasn't breathing. She thought he was dead, so she wrapped his body in a plastic bag and left him in the bathroom.

There have been several recent cases of unwed mothers murdering their newborn children in Shanghai. In June, a single mother threw her baby from a building in Songjiang district.