Police on Wednesday arrested a 29-year-old woman after she allegedly buried her newborn baby in her uncle’s backyard in San Fernando town in southern Cebu.
PO1 Mary Jane Estrera of the San Fernando Municipal Police Office’s Women and Children’s Protection Desk said Jacqueline Soroño will be charged with infanticide
Police exhumed the baby girl’s remains at 2 p.m. Wednesday while Soroño was out of the house.
Estrera said that the baby was buried a few hours after she was born. She said a 14-year-old boy claimed he saw the woman dig a hole in their backyard in barangay Panadtaran, on Friday afternoon.
The boy then told his uncle about what he saw and asked him to go with him to have a look after Soroño stepped out of her house on Wednesday afternoon.
“Tiyo, atong tan-awon kay mura jud ug naa siya’y gilubong didto (Uncle, let’s check it out as it seems that she had buried something in her backyard),” Estrera said quoting the boy’s testimony.
Together with some neighbors, they went to the yard and dug up the mound and found the right leg of an infant jutting out of the shallow grave. They immediately reported what they found to the police. According to neighbors, the baby was still alive when it was buried.
Soroño in an interview, however said that she did not know whether her baby was still alive when she buried her.
“Blanko man gud ako utok adtong mga panahona, (My mind went blank at the time),” Soroño said.
Soroño said she was alone in the house when she gave birth on Friday morning.
“Wala ko kadungog nga ninghilak ang bata mao tong mingbarog ko, minghigda ko kay kapoy kaayo akong lawas. Didto ra siya sa arinola, (I didn’t hear her cry so I stood up and laid down on the bed as I was so exhausted. I left the baby in the chamber pot),” she added.
Soroño, the fourth of five siblings, is living with her uncle after her parents died few years ago.
Her uncle, Samuel Soroño, 57, said he was shocked by what his niece did. He said he was at work when the incident happened. Samuel said his niece just stayed in her room during the course of her pregnancy.
postpartum depression
Police are still determining whether Soroño was suffering from postpartum depression.
According to Dr. Jeanette Pauline Arellano of the Department of Health’s family planning and maternal care unit, women suffering from postpartum depression need a strong support system from the family.
She said that women who are having postpartum depression need to confide their feelings to their families. Postpartum depression is a clinical depression which mostly happens to women after giving birth. Its causes are unclear since there are many factors which contribute to this type of depression.
Arellano said women who are suffering from postpartum depression usually don’t want to talk to people and in extreme cases go berserk. Sufferers sometimes vent their anger on the baby. The worst case is when the mother could kill the baby.
Unwanted pregnancies could also lead to postpartum depression, Arellano said. / with a report from Correspondent Christine Emily L. Pantaleon