A mum who stabbed her newborn baby boy in the heart with the scissors she had used to cut the umbilical cord after giving birth has been jailed for almost three decades.

Michelle Ribeiro Passos has now been sentenced to 26 years, 11 months and 22 days in prison for the murder that happened in the bathroom of her home in the city of Vitoria, in the state of Espirito Santo, in Brazil, in 2015.

The 35-year-old had apparently decided to kill the child because her partner did not want any more children, and she then tried to claim it was an accident.

The public prosecutor’s office said: “The defendant was alone when she gave birth to the baby in the bathroom at home. Shortly after birth, she committed the crime.

“She killed the child because her partner did not want to have more children. The blow of scissors hit the newborn’s heart, who died instantly.”

Prosecutors added that Ribeiro Passos’s husband, who has not been named, did not even know about her pregnancy.

They said that she explained to him that her growing belly was due to weight gain.

Prosecutors said: “She justified that, as she was overweight, she did not suspect the pregnancy and only found out about the child when it was born. However, to hide her pregnancy from her husband, she had falsified two tests, which were positive.”

Her lawyers had argued that the ruling did not take into account her state of mind at the time.

Investigators at the time said that she had given birth over the toilet and stabbed the baby after cutting its umbilical cord with the scissors.

The child’s father and Ribeiro Passos’ relatives called the emergency services after they discovered the fatally stabbed baby.

The mother and child were taken to hospital but the child was declared dead.

Ribeiro Passos claimed at the time that she did not know that she was pregnant and pointed to the falsified tests. She also said that she may have unintentionally injured the baby while cutting the umbilical cord.

Police Commissioner Nicolle Perusia testified: “As the cut was very deep, I went to the hospital to talk to her. Coldly, without showing emotion or feeling, she said that she did not act intentionally against her son. She said that she cut it without looking and that it could be that she accidentally hit him.”

But the court did not believe Ribeiro Passos. The sentence is final as the ruling is the result of an earlier appeal by the defendant.