Australia: Newborn baby dies after mother wraps him in towel for 16 hours

Brisbane: A 38-year-old single mother pleaded guilty to manslaughter of her newborn boy Oliver in 2014, who she believed was stillborn.

According to Jodie Tarnawskyj, who delivered in the toilet, the baby was stillborn. Therefore she wrapped him in a towel for 16 hours, before calling for an ambulance, reports Daily Mail.

During a trial on Monday in the Brisbane Supreme Court, the prosecutor Glen Cash said that thinking that the child as stillborn, Tarnawskyj wrapped him in towel, which is 'not at all a reasonable belief to have been held'.

He added that according to an autopsy, the 3.6 kg full-term baby survived for 'minutes or even hours' after his birth, however, the cause of death is yet to be known.

Meanwhile, Tarnawskyj’s lawyer, John Allen, said in his argument that his client was filled with 'a profound sense of guilt, remorse, and loss'.

The court also heard that the death of the infant could have been due to asphyxiation from the towel he was wrapped in or from an undiagnosed medical condition.

As the woman had already served 885 days behind bars, the court acquitted her taking into consideration of her lack of criminal history, her co-operation with authorities and her remorse.