'Fake pregnancy' woman in N.Zealand baby snatch: police

A New Zealand woman who allegedly fooled her family for nine months into believing she was pregnant walked into a hospital saying she had gone into labour and abducted a baby, police said on Tuesday.

When 24-year-old Neha Narayan, of Fijian-Indian descent, told her partner she was about to give birth last Wednesday he dropped her off at Auckland's Middlemore hospital where she was able to roam the maternity ward.

She was found holding one baby which she said she comforting and later she was handed an Indian baby by a hospital staff member who believed she was the mother, police spokeswoman Ana-Mari Gates-Bowey said.

"On her way out of the hospital, when she had a small two-day-old Indian child with her that she'd taken from the birthing unit, a nurse stopped her in her tracks, and asked her to come back inside," she told Radio Newstalk ZB.

The parents also saw her carrying their child and alerted other staff who called the police as Narayan made her way to where her partner was waiting in the car.

Narayan has been charged with abduction and will appear in court later in the month.