Probation for Disposal of Dead Infant : Sentencing: Woman who tried to conceal her pregnancy, then gave birth to stillborn baby at home, panicked and later threw it away, her lawyer says.

A Costa Mesa woman who threw her stillborn baby in a trash bin last November was sentenced to two years’ probation Wednesday.

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Veronica Aguilar Gonzalez, 26, had faced a maximum of 30 days in jail after pleading guilty Nov. 22 to a misdemeanor charge of illegally discarding the infant’s body.

Aguilar Gonzalez refused comment Wednesday. But public defender Shelly Aronson said her client was embarrassed by her pregnancy and became scared when she realized that the newborn girl she delivered alone at home was not breathing.

“She basically just panicked . . . and it snowballed,” Aronson said.

As part of probation, Aguilar Gonzalez will probably be asked to attend parenting and counseling classes as well as a first-aid class, Aronson said.

Aguilar Gonzalez was arrested on suspicion of manslaughter after the child’s body was found in early November at an Irvine trash transfer station. But she was later charged only with improperly disposing of human and fetal remains.

Coroner’s officials said the baby suffocated on amniotic fluids.

The unmarried woman had hidden her pregnancy from her roommates before giving birth in the apartment they shared, Aronson said.

“It was embarrassing for her. She hoped to hide from everyone that she was pregnant and go to Mexico to have the baby,” Aronson said.

Aronson and prosecutors said Aguilar Gonzalez hid the baby’s body in her apartment for several days, then wrapped it in a plastic bag and carried it on the bus on her way to work as a housekeeper in Newport Beach. She discarded the body in a trash bin behind a Newport Beach apartment complex.

The baby, also named Veronica, was given a funeral service in Orange last week by a nonprofit group called Child Rest in Peace, which provides burials for abandoned or indigent children.

Aronson described Aguilar Gonzalez as a very responsible woman who has worked for five years as a nanny and housekeeper for a Newport Beach family.

“I doubt we’ll ever see her in court again . . . she just needs some classes in coping,” Aronson said.