An Australian mother has been convicted of manslaughter after she delivered her baby boy herself at home and failed to seek medical attention.

The Brisbane Supreme Court has heard that in 2014, Jodie Renee Tarnawskyj, 38, went into labor at home and gave birth to a son, Oliver, on her bathroom floor after just four pushes. She cut his umbilical cord, the Australian Broadcasting Company reports, wrapped him in a blanket and put him on a laundry bench where she left him, believing he was stillborn. She described him as “being limp” and said she didn’t want to look at him. She is said to have told one of her other children who had woken up during the birth to go back to bed.

Sixteen hours after giving birth, she finally called an ambulance.

Tarnawskyj pleaded guilty and was charged with manslaughter over her failure to seek help. A murder charge was dismissed.

An autopsy revealed that Oliver could not have been stillborn. “Medical evidence makes it plain that was not the case,” Prosecutor Glen Cash told the court. He said the baby had air in his lungs and stomach and it was likely he survived for at least some minutes, possibly hours, after birth.

The court heard the baby was a healthy weight and had no congenital deformities and that the only two possible causes of his death could have been asphyxiation or an unidentifiable medical ailment.

The court heard that before she gave birth, Tarnawskyj had made two appointments to have the pregnancy terminated but canceled both times. “The events can’t be explained by inexperience or immaturity,” Cash said.

John Allen, Tarnawskyj’s lawyer, said his client’s early guilty plea was a sign of “a profound sense of guilt, remorse and loss.”

In sentencing, Justice Martin Burns said it was likely Tarnawskyj felt “overwhelmed, unsupported and isolated” by her circumstances. He agreed that Tarnawskyj believed her son was not breathing but said her failure to check was difficult to understand. He sentenced her to five years in jail but she was immediately released on parole, having already served almost two-and-a-half years in custody.

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