A woman has been charged with attempted murder following the discovery of a newborn baby boy in a drain in Sydney's west.
The 30-year-old woman has been refused bail and is set to appear in Blacktown Local Court on Monday.
Despite earlier estimates that the boy was 2-3 days old, police will now allege that he is seven days old and was placed into the drain on Tuesday, 24 hours after being born.
If the allegation is true it means he has survived in the drain for five days before being found by a passing cyclist on Sunday morning.
The baby is now in a serious but stable condition at the Westmead Children's Hospital.
Police suspect the baby was squeezed through the drain's narrow opening and dropped about 2.4 metres.
After he was found on Sunday, several people lifted the heavy slab covering the drain to get him out.
The baby is now in the care of the NSW Family and Community Services (FACS) Minister.
It will be up to the state agency to assess what now happens to him.
Supporting vulnerable mothers
Doctor Karen Healy from the Australian Association of Social Workers told SBS secrecy and shame over a pregnancy are usually factors at play.
She said antenatal services need to be targeted towards women who are likely to be vulnerable and don't want to reveal their pregnancy to others.
"They’re often in a state of acute distress and requiring some sort of support and once they get that support often the situation can be resolved. It’s a very rare event. It’s so rare that there are, in fact, no statistics on it but my estimate based on looking at cases is, it’s less than ten a year."
Dr Healy said it was crucial for services to support women before, during and after birth.
"The first is really good antenatal services so prior to the birth for services that deal with vulnerable people to have outreach to women who are about to give birth. So, for example, having antenatal services attached to homeless services, mental-health and drug-addiction services is really important.
"The second thing is that, once the mother is in hospital to give birth, that there are very good support services that they can trust. And then the third element is good follow-up after the baby is born, but not by just traditional medical and health services but by the specialist outreach homelessness, mental-health and drug-addiction services."
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