A 21 year old woman who tried to steal five babies from two different hospitals in less than eight hours disguised as a nurse has been arrested.
Dressed in a white gown, she entered a hospital room in Valencia saying she needed to perform a heel prick on a child.
She took the child from a relative’s arms but its father became suspicious and started to ask her about the supposed test, receiving incoherent answers in return.
The man then snatched his hours-old child out of her arms and the woman fled the room, but was tracked down to a toilet where she had hid to take off her fake nurse’s uniform.
A police spokesman confirmed she had entered two other rooms at the hospital in Valencia, adding: “Police later discovered the woman in custody had tried to take two other babies from a hospital in Cartagena 170 miles south earlier in the day. using the same excuse that she needed to do tests on them.
The scares happened within an eight-hour period on Sunday at Cartagena General Hospital and a second public hospital in Valencia called La Fe.
She had entered two more rooms before being caught – but discovered the woman in one was yet to give birth and was ordered out of the other by suspicious relatives of the child she allegedly tried to take.
Hospital security guards held her as she left the toilets before police arrived.
Detectives discovered a bus ticket in her pocket as they searched her – and were subsequently able to link her to an attempted double baby snatch at the hospital in Cartagena earlier in the day.
Specialist officers are now trying to establish if she acted alone or with the help of accomplices.
Security at both hospitals has been increased following the scare.
Around 6,000 babies are born each year at La Fe Hospital.
The woman reportedly told police after her arrest she had recently suffered two abortions.