A 25-year-old woman is under police guard at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) after she reportedly dumped her infant in a latrine this morning at Goed Fortuin, West Bank Demerara (WBD).
The woman has been identified as Priya Mootoo, a mother of one of Lot 57 Goed Fortuin, WBD.
According to information received, the young mother gave birth to a baby boy this morning in her one-bedroom apartment. She reportedly used a knife to cut the umbilical cord and discarded it in a drain near her home.
A police source said that the woman then wrapped the baby in a black plastic bag and called her five-year-old son who was playing in the yard and requested that he dispose of the bag in the latrine.
The Guyana Standard has been informed that the outhouse is used by more than 15 people, who live in the same yard with the woman. Shortly after disposing of the infant, a male relative went to use the washroom and noticed something in the bag was moving.
Reports are that he used a stick to pull out the plastic bag and upon examining, he found the infant. An alarm was raised and residents rushed the infant to the West Demerara Regional Hospital where he succumbed.
A police source said that when the woman was first questioned, she claimed that the infant was not her child and that she had not given birth as yet—her abdomen was still high. Upon investigating further, ranks found the umbilical cord in the drain.
The Guyana Standard was told that the woman’s five-year-old son later told relatives that it was his mother who asked him to dump the bag in the outhouse. The woman was then taken to the hospital where it was confirmed that she had recently given birth.
She is currently receiving treatment at the GPHC. While it is unclear what led the woman to disposing of her infant in the latrine, financial difficulties is suspected as one of the reasons.
