A woman in Japan has confessed to police that she drowned four babies in concrete-filled buckets because she was too poor to look after them.

Mayumi Saito, 53, handed her self in two decades after killing the babies, telling them she had felt guilt for not caring for them, reports the Metro.

She was arrested on Tuesday on charges of abandoning bodies, a day after she went to Osaka police station to admit what she had done.

A police official said human bones were identified in buckets found in her condominium. The police official requested anonymity due to department policy.

Saito was quoted by police as saying she put the bodies into concrete from 1992 through 1997 because she had been too poor to raise them, but she had been filled with guilt. Saito had a part-time job, but details of her work and family were not available.