Teenage mother of abandoned newborn found in NW Indiana

Authorities have located the teenage mother of a newborn found in the backyard of a home a week ago in northwest Indiana.

About 10:45 a.m. July 11, a 9-year-old girl found the newborn girl, whose umbilical cord and placenta were still attached, lying in the sun wrapped in a black towel in her family’s backyard in the 18000 block of White Oak Avenue in Lowell, Indiana, according to the Lake County sheriff’s office.

She told her mother, who took the baby inside and called police.

The infant was taken to Franciscan St. Anthony Health in Crown Point, the sheriff’s office said. She remains under medical observation as of Monday morning and is in good health.

Lake County Special Victims Unit investigators located the mother, a teenage girl who lives in Lowell, according to the sheriff’s office. No further information will be released because she is a juvenile.

The baby will be transferred to a foster facility in the coming days, according to the sheriff’s office. The case has been turned over the Indiana Department of Child Services for further investigation.