PARIS: A newborn baby died in Paris on Monday after his 18-year-old American mother threw him out a hotel window, umbilical cord still attached, French prosecutors and a police source said.

She threw the infant from the second-floor window of a hotel in the 20th arrondissement in eastern Paris, the prosecutor`s office said. `The newborn was given emergency care but did not survive,` prosecutors said.

The baby died at 7:45am at the Robert Debre hospital, a police source said.

Police had been alerted after an infant wrapped in a cloth, with its umbilical cord still attached, had been discoveredinfront ofthe hotel,the police source said.

The mother, an 18-year-old American student, had given birth in a room on the second floor of the hotel and then thrown her child out of the window, according to the source.

French officials said they had launched a murder investigation, adding that the young woman who was `part of a group of young adults travelling in Europe` had been taken into custody.

The mother was taken to hospital where she was to undergo treatment following her delivery, the prosecutor`s office reported. Paris Match, citing its own information, reported the child`s mother was on a study trip to Paris with other students from the United States.-AFP