BEIJING (AFP) - The fall of a newborn baby into a toilet pipe in China was accidental and his mother will not be prosecuted, local officials said on Wednesday, adding the boy is healthy.

The mother, 22 and unmarried, had kept her pregnancy secret and gave birth unexpectedly when she went to the lavatory on Saturday.

The newborn fell into the squat toilet and became stuck in the tube, police in Jinhua in the eastern province of Zhejiang said earlier.

Firefighters and doctors spent nearly an hour taking a section of the 10cm-diameter pipe apart piece by piece with pliers and saws before they could recover the boy, whose placenta was still attached, said previous media reports.

"Our investigations showed it was an accident," a local police officer who declined to be named told AFP, and confirmed the mother will not be prosecuted.

She refused to give further details.

The incident triggered hundreds of thousands of comments on China's hugely popular weibos, services similar to Twitter, with users astonished by the circumstances and expressing good wishes for the baby.

From the time he was found until when he was taken out, the 2.3kg baby was stuck in the tube for two to three hours, authorities and media reports said previously.

He suffered some cuts to his face and limbs and was put in an incubator at the Pujiang People's Hospital, they said, where nurses dubbed him Baby No. 59 after the machine's number.

Head of the hospital Wu Xinhong said the infant was healthy and ready to be released.

"His condition is good but his relatives have not come to pick him up yet," he told AFP.

Police have said the mother was in serious condition due to complications from the delivery, while authorities were still looking for the baby's father.