French prosecutors say a woman who admitted suffocating eight of her newborn babies and concealing their corpses in the garden and garage of her home has been charged with manslaughter.

Prosecutor Eric Vaillant said “Dominique Cottrez, a 46-year-old nurse's aide by profession, said that after a bad experience with her first pregnancy she never again wanted to see a doctor. She admitted delivering the babies herself and placing the corpses in plastic bags. She buried two of the newborns in the garden and hid the rest of them in the garage.”

"She explained that she didn't want any more children and that she didn't want to see a doctor to take contraceptives,"

Vaillant told a news conference. "She was perfectly conscious of the fact that she was pregnant each time."

Cottrez and her husband, Pierre-Marie Cottrez, were recently detained after two corpses were discovered by new owners in plastic bags in the garden of a house that had belonged to the woman's father in the town of Villers-au-Tertre in northern France.

Under questioning, the woman admitted that there were six other corpses and told investigators that they were in plastic bags in the garage of her home where they were found.

The woman is still in detention and will undergo further psychiatric testing, Vaillant said. Her husband was freed from custody and not charged, although he remains under judicial control.

He claimed that he knew nothing about the pregnancies of his wife, who is very large and apparently easily concealed her condition.

Police sealed the doors, gate and windows of the house where the remains of some of the babies were discovered. DNA tests are being conducted to establish for sure whether the couple are the parents, and autopsies are being conducted on the corpses to try to determine the cause of death.