Mum charged after allegedly leaving baby outside bar

A US mother has been arrested after allegedly leaving her baby outside a bar while she was drunk.

Destiny Davila, 18, was charged with child endangerment, public drunkenness and underage drinking on Saturday, Associated Press reports. 

Police and federal agents in Hazleton, Pennsylvania had found Davila’s 14-month-old baby sitting unrestrained in a car with a stranger during a routine check. 

The woman claimed she was caring for the infant girl, having found her unattended in front of the bar for about 25 minutes. 

Police told the Standard Speaker a bar employee then appeared and said the child's mother had come to the bar and had left while the child was outside and unsupervised.

Police took the baby to hospital to be checked out, and said Davila was intoxicated when she arrived there.

The mother told police she had been drinking before taking her baby to the bar, and had left the child there when someone offered to care for her.

“The appalling situation like what occurred ... are stark reminders to mothers in desperate situations that there is always a better choice for their baby,” Jerry Speziale, the chief of police at Hazleton Police Department, told Metro US.