The Serbian woman, 23, and known only as Jelica S, gave birth at her home after wanting an abortion and hurled one of the newborn boys against a wall before scooping his body up and putting it inside a soft toy. She hid the other twin, who was stillborn more than a day after the first traumatic birth, in a laundry basket in the kitchen. A court in the Swiss city of Lucerne heard the defendant had gone into labour at seven months pregnant after recently splitting from the babies’ father. The contractions started when she climbed into the bath with her laptop to get advice about her situation.
She said: “I did not know how a child is born. I filled the bathtub when it started.
“I do not remember today how I did it. I just remember lying in the bathtub and looking on the internet for what to do.”
She delivered the first child herself, and told the court she was “scared because he did not scream properly”.
She took the child to the basement where she kept her washing machine and slammed him against the wall before throwing him to the floor.
She then wrapped the body in an old Mickey Mouse T-shirt before stuffing him inside a teddy.
The court heard the child died from a traumatic brain injury and multiple skull fractures.
The mother told the court: “I just put him there. I do not know what went on in my head.”
Up to 31 hours later she delivered the second child, another boy, which was stillborn in the bath tub.
She wrapped the child in a towel and hid the body in the laundry bin in the kitchen of her home.
An expert told the court that if Jelica S had gone straight to hospital after delivering the first twin herself, the second may have survived.
Jelica S, who lived in Lucerne, has been found guilty of killing one of her twin boys deliberately.
The second, the court ruled, died as a result of her negligence.
Prosecutors that said she had been unable to afford an abortion demanded she be jailed for eight years.
Instead, she has been jailed for one year with an additional suspended sentence of 22 months.
One prosecutor said: “The accused has two faces. She seems naive. In truth, she is tough and calculating.”
A court psychiatrist said she suffered from an “adjustment disorder with prolonged depressive reaction”.
The babies were born and died in December 2015.