Woman fakes pregnancy, snatches baby

A New Zealand woman who fooled her family into believing she was pregnant has been charged with abduction after allegedly walking into a hospital and stealing a new-born baby, police said Tuesday.

Neha Narayan was arrested after she was found with the baby heading for the hospital car park where her partner was waiting to take her home with what he believed was their own child.

Police spokeswoman Ana-Mari Gates-Bowey told reporters Narayan faked her pregnancy for nine months before telling her partner to drop her off at Auckland's Middlemore hospital as she was due to give birth.

Inside the hospital the 24-year-old, who is of Fiji-Indian descent, was able to roam the maternity ward.

At one stage she was found holding a baby which she said she was comforting, and later she was handed an Indian baby by a hospital staff member who believed she was the mother, Gates-Bowey said.

Narayan is alleged to have then headed for the car park where her partner and another person were waiting and both were under the impression that she had been pregnant, Gates-Bowey said.

The baby's parents raised the alarm as they saw Narayan leave with what they believed was their child and alerted hospital staff.

"On her way out of the hospital, when she had a small two-day-old Indian child with her that she'd taken from the birthing unit, a nurse stopped her in her tracks, and asked her to come back inside," Gates-Bowey said.

Police were called and Narayan was charged with abduction of a young person.

She has been released on bail and will appear in court later this month.

A spokesman for the hospital said a review of security was now under way at its birthing unit where access is limited to staff, patients and immediate family.