babies

Health minister has already announced investigation into phenomenon of babies born with no or stunted arms for which no cause has been found.

At the end of a week-long trial, a court in Bordeaux has sentenced Ramona Canete, 37, to eight years in prison for murdering over a period of ten years five of her newborn babies whose bodies she hid from her family in a freezer.

Ramona Hernandez-Canete, 37, was arrested after one of her teenage children found the corpse of a newborn baby in a laundry basket, before four more bodies of babies were discovered in a freezer at her home in south-west France.

Four bodies were found in a deep-freeze unit and another in the bedroom of a couple with two teenage daughters at their house near Bordeaux.

Two mothers unwittingly left a Cannes maternity clinic in 1994 with the other's daughter after incubator mixup revealed years later by DNA test.

The families of the two babies only found out about the hospital mix-up in the south of France when the girls were aged ten.

Several unused IV nutrient bags from the same batch given to the newborns who died were found to have traces of bacteria, says hospital.