Body of Newborn Discovered on Shore : Investigation: A woman walking in Newport finds the infant, who had been in the water several days. Police have no clues about identity or cause of death.

The body of a newborn, her umbilical cord still attached, washed ashore near 10th Street and was found Saturday by a woman on her morning walk, police said.

Police officers called to the Balboa Peninsula about 8:40 a.m. found the body of a baby girl, who coroners estimated had been in the water five to six days, long enough for her skin to become so opaque that police were unable to precisely identify her race.

“We think she was probably Caucasian,” said Police Lt. Don Chandler. “We don’t know for sure.”

An autopsy was performed Saturday but a cause of death cannot be determined until further tests are conducted, said a spokesman for the Orange County coroner’s office.

Investigators said the unidentified newborn was 19 inches long and weighed eight pounds, indicating that she was full-term when born. Police have not determined whether the baby was stillborn or how and where it entered the ocean, Chandler said.

“We’re obviously looking for the mother of the child,” Police Detective William Hartford said.

Hartford said he has contacted all area hospitals in case the mother sought medical attention. But the search will be difficult because strong ocean currents during the overnight storm might have dragged the infant’s body some distance, Chandler said.

The infant’s body, with an 8- to 10-inch umbilical cord still attached, was found by a 35-year-old woman from Garden Grove, who discovered it near the surf line about 8:40 a.m., Chandler said. The woman’s name was not released by police.

The death did not appear to be related to the storm, investigators said, and no one has reported a missing baby within the past few days. Hartford declined to discuss the case in detail, including whether the infant was clothed.

In November, 1993, workers found the corpse of a baby girl--also with her umbilical cord attached--at an Irvine trash transfer station, and traced the garbage back to a Newport Beach dumpster.

A physician who read a news report of the discovery helped police locate the child’s mother, a Costa Mesa woman who, Hartford said, was subsequently found guilty of a misdemeanor health and safety violation.

Police originally sought a manslaughter charge against the self-employed housekeeper but withdrew it when tests performed by the coroner’s office were inconclusive on whether the baby was born alive.

The woman, then 26, had given birth alone in her apartment several weeks before the baby’s due date, according to her public defender.

Dr. Bruce Danto, a Fullerton forensic psychiatrist who also has eight years of experience as a homicide detective, said newborns are most commonly abandoned by teen-agers or young women who deliver out of wedlock; women who feel they cannot take care of their babies; mothers who harbor resentment against a child’s father, and mothers who are psychotic.

In most cases, Danto said, it is the mother who makes the decision to abandon a newborn. But there have been cases in which a father discarded the baby either to escape parental responsibilities or to take revenge against the mother, Danto said.

Police are asking anyone with information on the infant found Saturday to call (714) 644-3681.