Chinese baby stuck down toilet pipe rescued by police in Beijing

The crying baby girl's umbilical cord had been pulled off

A policeman holding an abandoned newborn baby in a public toilet in Beijing. A newborn baby girl was abandoned in a Beijing public toilet and fell head-first down the pipe, reports said, after her mother apparently gave birth in the facility (Getty)

An abandoned newborn was rescued after being found stuck down a public toilet pipe in China.

A policeman retrieved the crying baby girl after spotting her feet sticking out of the pipe.

She was taken to hospital in Beijing, with medical staff telling a local television station that the baby had infections, but was otherwise unharmed.

Chinese authorities are trying to identify the girl’s parents and find out how she ended up face-down in the alleyway toilet.

A policeman holding an abandoned newborn baby in a public toilet in Beijing (Getty)

“I am probably the first one to hold this child,” police officer Qian Feng, who rescued the girl by getting down on the ground and pulling her out, told a television station.

Police said the child did not appear to have any physical defects which could have led to her abandonment.

A local television report said a woman may have given birth to the baby directly into the toilet and left without the child, whose umbilical cord was pulled off, instead of cut off.

In 2013, rescuers in the eastern Chinese province of Zhejiang cut open a sewer pipe to save a baby boy, who his mother said had accidentally slipped into the toilet where she delivered the child. Local media reports said the woman had become pregnant after a one-night stand but hid the pregnancy from her parents. She later admitted to police she was the mother.

Additional reporting by AP