Newborn baby boy survives 24 hours in armadillo burrow

A newborn baby was pulled alive from an armadillo’s burrow in the southern Brazilian state of Paraná 24 hours after being abandoned there by his mother.

Lucinda Ferreira Guimarães, 40, had gone to great lengths to hide her pregnancy, even when in her eighth month. She and her four children had recently moved in with a new boyfriend.



Police believe that on Sunday afternoon she went into a wood near her home in a poor area in Laranjeiras do Sul and gave birth there, hiding the baby before returning home.

Neighbours brought the little boy back from the dead when they found him buried with his placenta when a dog started digging and whining around some freshly-dug soil.

The baby was under about eight inches of soil. At first the people thought the child was dead. But as they wiped mud from his face, he opened his eyes and burst out crying.

The boy, who had still not been named, was rushed to the Sao Lucas Maternity Hospital in Laranjeiras do Sul, southern Brazil, where he was fed and bathed.