Newborn baby found under bush in Birmingham park

A dog walker found the baby girl in a plastic bag

A newborn baby has been found abandoned inside a carrier bag under a bush in a park in Birmingham.

Hospital staff are provisionally calling the baby "Jade", after the dog who found her. After the German Shepherd sniffed her out, its owner found the infant wrapped in a blanket and crying inside a bag off Stuarts Road in the Stechford area of the city.

West Midlands Police are now appealing for the mother to come forward and be reunited with her daughter, who was less than 24 hours old when she was discovered at 2pm on 31 October. She weighed around 6lbs (2.7kg).

The towel and carrier bag the baby was wrapped in have been sent away for forensics tests while it hoped DNA samples taken from Jade will help identify her parents.

The police have taken their search for the mother to houses around the park and regional hospitals, medical centres and care homes.

Police say the baby was abandoned for about 30 minutes. After being taken to hospital, she is now doing “really well” according to a West Midlands Police spokesman, adding their priority now was to find her mother.

Chief Inspector Ian Green’s message to the mother was: “You are not in trouble, we need to get you back together with your lovely daughter,” adding the woman “may be in need of urgent medical attention and we need her to contact us as soon as possible.”

He appealed to anyone with information to ring police on 101, or for the mother to go directly to hospital or a doctor’s surgery.

The West Midlands Police helicopter and dog teams were later used in the hope of locating her.