Sofia was taken by a couple from the Sacro Cuore clinic in the Calabrian city of Cosenza before security officers found her three hours later after a sweeping police operation.

“Thousands of you are writing from everywhere in Itay,” Sofia’s mother, 24, wrote in a Facebook post featuring a picture of the baby girl and of her six-year-old brother.

“The police did an exceptional job, while I had lost all hope. The entire city and Region stopped to look for our baby.

“A mother and father died and were reborn yesterday.”

Police late on Tuesday arrested Rosa Vespa, a 51-year-old Cosenza native and her Senegalese husband Acqua Moses, 43, over the abduction.

Vespa had pretended to be pregnant over the past nine months and had announced on January 8 the alleged birth of a baby boy, Ansel.

She posed as a nurse at the clinic and took away the baby from the mother’s room, saying she needed to take her to see the clinic’s paediatrician for a checkup.

Police identified the pair thanks to surveillance footage at the clinic showing them as they took the baby away.

When officers broke into their home, they found the couple celebrating their new baby, whom they had dressed up in blue, with family.

Investigative sources said footage taken inside the clinic showed the couple fighting before taking away the baby, presumably after Vespa kidnapped a baby girl instead of a boy.

The baby was taken back to the clinic so her mother could see her again and then to the local public Annunziata hospital for a checkup.

Healthcare sources said she was in good health and her father picked her up from the hospital on Wednesday morning.

“It was amazing to hug my daughter again, I am happy - the baby is fine,” her 26-year-old father said.

The family are set to return home on Wednesday.

ANSA