The suspect, identified as construction worker Suneeporn Sakda, reportedly lost her own baby in the womb and stole the new-born to lie to her husband that she had given birth, police said.

She was arrested and the baby recovered at a workers’ camp in Soi Phai Toey Tai in Tambon Bor Phab of Nakhon Pathom’s Muang district at around 10am.

Suneeporn befriended the baby’s mother at the hospital’s maternity ward on Thursday and followed the mother and infant to their home when they were discharged from hospital on Saturday.

She allegedly returned on Sunday to tell the couple that the hospital required the baby to have an injection, so the father got a taxi back to the hospital along with Suneeporn and another Myanmar friend.

Suneeporn allegedy then took the baby and walked ahead, purportedly to see a doctor, while the father paid the taxi fare. But she left the premises with the baby.

On Monday, as police arrived to ask for the baby’s birth document, she burst into tears and admitted to stealing the baby from his parents at the hospital because she wanted to raise him as her own child.

She said she had been pregnant to her 22-year-old husband Wirachai Niamkhlai, but found that her child had died in the womb. Nevertheless, she told her husband she would go to give birth in Ratchaburi before proceeding with her plan to abduct a child.

Suneeporn, who reportedly was wanted for fraud by impersonating another on a warrant issued on April 9, 2013, was arrested initially on a charge of taking a minor under 15 from his parents and was brought to re-enact the crime.

The baby was sent to the hospital for a check-up as police questioned his parents about the case.

Nakhon Pathom governor Adisak Thep-asana praised police for their prompt investigation and safe return of the baby, and urged hospitals to increase security procedures to prevent such an incident happening again.