A woman who took a newborn girl from her sleeping mum’s bedside has revealed she did it in order to fake her own pregnancy. The suspect, known as Li, from Guizhou Province in south-western China, claims to have lost her unborn child but continued to pretend she was pregnant.

She told a court she believed her lover would leave her if he knew she had miscarried. She then faked her pregnancy and hatched a plan to steal a newborn close to her due date according to a report by The Mirror.

The court found her guilty of kidnapping and handed her a reduced sentence of one year and 10 months, including time served. It was unclear whether she planned to appeal the verdict.

Li was arrested on 10th December last year, 56 hours after she sneaked out of the maternity ward of Liangjiang Hospital carrying the newborn infant in her arms.

CCTV images from the facility showed Li in a stolen nurse uniform, carrying the child out of the room where her mum, Chen Mingxin, was sleeping.

According to reports, at least 10 people, including three other new mums, were in the room at the time of the kidnapping.

The newborn was found in Li’s rental room just 300 feet from the hospital’s entrance. According to the mother:

I woke up and my daughter was gone. The mother in the bed next to mine said she was carried away by a woman in a nurse uniform. I wondered why she didn’t tell me, but she thought the woman was a real nurse. The suspect actually wanted to take her baby, but she wasn’t successful because she woke up. That was when she decided to take mine instead.

Chen claimed the hospital changing room, which is full of standard nurse uniforms, is not locked and can be accessed by members of the public.

However, it is not clear if the risks have been addressed by the hospital in question.