Mother of Newborn Is Arrested : Thousand Oaks: The homeless woman gives birth on a hillside. She is charged with child endangerment.

A homeless woman who gave birth on a rocky hillside ledge in Thousand Oaks early Thursday was arrested on suspicion of child endangerment after paramedics found the baby shivering from cold, sheriff’s investigators said.

Maria Gabriel Haulica, 36, was being held in Ventura County Jail with bail set at $5,000. Her unnamed baby was in the nursery unit at Westlake Medical Center, where she was listed in stable condition.

Paramedics found the mother and child about 6 a.m. on a four-foot-wide ledge in the hills near Erbes Road and Thousand Oaks Boulevard, Sheriff’s Detective Mike Powers said.

“This child was in extreme danger,” Powers said. “She was blue from the cold and breathing abnormally.” The low temperature in Thousand Oaks on Friday morning was in the mid-50s.

Paramedics had visited the scene about seven hours earlier after the woman’s boyfriend summoned help, Powers said. The man said he feared that his pregnant girlfriend was going to deliver their child soon, Powers said.

The boyfriend, who lives in an apartment nearby, told investigators that he had been unable to persuade Haulica to spend the night at home with him, Powers said.

“She elected to stay out there on the ledge,” the detective said. “She likes to live on the hillside.”

The paramedics said Haulica showed no signs of being in labor and she insisted that she was fine, Powers said, so the deputies and medical personnel left her there.

“We can’t forcibly take someone, even if we think they’re going to have a baby,” Powers said. “She wanted to be left alone.”

Haulica gave birth about an hour after the paramedics’ visit, according to an account she gave investigators later, Powers said.

“She told us there were no complications,” the detective said. “She covered the child with a T-shirt and went to sleep with the child a few inches away.”

About dawn the boyfriend returned, saw his newborn daughter and immediately called for help. When paramedics and deputies arrived the second time, the infant was shivering and was covered with afterbirth, Powers said.

The mother and child were taken to the Westlake Village hospital, where the infant was placed in a warming Isolette to stabilize her body temperature.

“She’s doing very well,” said Jane Kelly, a hospital spokeswoman. “She looks fine.” Kelly said she did not know if the infant was premature.

Haulica was arrested at the hospital and taken to the jail infirmary. She was released from the infirmary later Thursday but was still in custody, a jail official said.

Haulica told investigators that she has no idea when she became pregnant and that she had no prenatal care, Powers said.

Kelly said the county children’s services unit will determine what happens to the infant. So far, she said, the baby has had no contact with her father.

Powers declined to identify the father and said he does not face charges.

“He’s a good guy,” the detective said, adding that the newborn is the man’s first child. “By all accounts he was attempting to seek medical attention for his girlfriend and soon-to-be-born child.”

Investigators said they do not know how long Haulica has lived at the site, which overlooks the Ventura Freeway near California 23. Powers said the woman had a garbage bag full of clothes but no tent or other shelter.

Although the area has attracted homeless people for several years, investigators said Haulica was the only one camping there Wednesday night. Powers said the land, which includes a burned-out house, belongs to one of Haulica’s relatives.

Powers said Haulica is familiar to deputies in Thousand Oaks as a transient but not as a law violator. Haulica also has an 11-year-old son who lives with relatives, he said.

Haulica will be arraigned next week in Ventura County Municipal Court, Powers said.