Newborn buried alive in pot has fully recovered

A newborn baby found buried alive in a cemetery in India has fully recovered, doctors say.

The premature newborn was found by chance in a clay pot in a village in Uttar Pradesh in the country's north.

Her survival story is one of incredible luck. After being buried alive, she was mistakenly found by a villager digging a grave for his own child.

Villager Hitesh Kumar was burying his stillbirth daughter when he heard crying from the pot.

"At one point I thought that my daughter had come alive. But the voice was actually coming from inside the pot," he said.

She was brought to hospital in a critical condition, weighing just 1.1kg, hypoglycaemic, hypothermic and with septicaemia.

But she has now fully recovered.

"On Tuesday, when we handed her over to the district hospital authorities, she weighed 2.57kg. She's accepting bottle feed and she is now totally healthy," paediatrician Ravi Khanna told the BBC.

Dr Khanna said she could have been buried for as long as three or four days, but a few hours is more likely.

Nobody has come forward to claim the unnamed baby, and police have launched a criminal investigation to find them.

The reason she was buried is not known, but there are alarmingly high rates of female infanticide in parts of India.

After a mandatory wait period, the little girl will be put up for adoption.