Homeless woman who gave birth outside the Vatican given a home

15:51 - 21 January 2016

The Vatican has offered a place to stay to a homeless woman who gave birth on a piece of cardboard near St. Peter's Square early Wednesday.

Police said the 35-year-old Romanian woman had gone into labor at about 2.30 a.m. in an Italian square just meters (yards) away from the Vatican.

Reuters reported that an Italian policewoman, Maria Capone, helped deliver the baby, a girl, and her colleagues covered both with their jackets until an ambulance arrived.

"When I got close I saw that the baby was already born and was still attached by the umbilical cord to the mother," Capone, told The Associated Press.

"With my colleagues we tried to warm them up. We covered them with our uniform jackets."

"I think it was close to zero, the baby regained color on her face after we covered her," another policeman said.

The head of Pope's Francis' charity office, Archbishop Konrad Krajewski, later visited the woman and baby in a hospital a few blocks away and offered her one-year's free accommodation in a Church-owned apartment, the Vatican spokesman said.