A 17-year-old girl appeared in the Knysna Magistrates Court on Wednesday after her newborn baby was found abandoned earlier this week.
Spokesperson Captain Malcolm Pojie says the teenager, who is from New Horizon in Plettenberg Bay, is being charged with child abandonment and neglect.
He says she will appear in court again on Thursday before she will be transferred to a place of safety.
The mother, who cannot be named, because she is a minor, will be back in court on the 9th of September.
The one-week-old baby girl was found by a passerby in bushes in Knysna on Monday and alerted authorities.
Captain Pojie says it did not take police very long to find the mother on Tuesday after they checked who had recently booked in at the maternity ward in Knysna.
