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Rescue workers breaking away bits of a pipe to remove a newborn baby boy stuck inside in the city of Jinhua, in the eastern province of Zhejiang. Image Credit: AFP

Beijing: The fall of a newborn baby into a toilet pipe in China was accidental and his mother will not be prosecuted, local officials said Wednesday, adding the boy is healthy.

The mother, 22 and unmarried, had kept her pregnancy secret and gave birth unexpectedly when she went to the lavatory on Saturday.

The newborn fell into the squat toilet and became stuck in the tube, police in Jinhua in the eastern province of Zhejiang said earlier.

Firefighters and doctors spent nearly an hour taking a section of the 10-centimetre diameter pipe apart piece by piece with pliers and saws before they could recover the boy, whose placenta was still attached, said previous media reports.

“Our investigations showed it was an accident,” a local police officer who declined to be named told AFP, and confirmed the mother will not be prosecuted. She refused to give further details.