The parents of a 13-year-old minor rape victim, who delivered a pre-term baby boy, have agreed to be the legal guardians of the newborn.
The parents of a 13-year-old minor rape victim, who delivered a pre-term baby boy, have agreed to be the legal guardians of the newborn. “We want to keep him. The baby will not be given to anyone else,” the mother of the 13-year-old minor said on Saturday. She said she was not sure about accepting the baby after the delivery, but said that “my husband decided so.”
The newborn is in the neonatal intensive care unit at the JJ Hospital, where he is on ventilator support. “The baby is stable. Since it is a pre-term birth and the weight is very low, we will keep the baby for a longer period,” said Dr Ashok Anand, head of the hospital’s gynaecology department.
The 13-year-old mother is stable and will remain in hospital for a week, doctors said.
A Child Welfare Committee (CWC) worker had accompanied the minor till Friday when she underwent a caesarean surgery to terminate her pregnancy following Supreme Court orders.
According to Rahul More, Divisional Deputy Commissioner of Women and Child Development, the family is the first legal guardian of the newborn. “If they decide to give the baby up for adoption, CWC would bring the case to us and WCD would then provide shelter for the child,” More said.
Read | After Supreme Court nod to abort, 13-year-old rape survivor delivers child
The minor is perhaps the youngest to have been permitted abortion after 31 weeks of pregnancy by the apex court. The minor found out about the pregnancy in its 27th week.
Since the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act caps the limit of abortion at 20 weeks, the minor’s father had approached the court seeking relief under Section 5 of the Act.
On Wednesday, based on the JJ Hospital medical report, the court directed the hospital to terminate the minor’s pregnancy. Since the foetus was fully formed, doctors observed that an abortion will technically mean pre-term delivery. A caesarean procedure was conducted on Friday to deliver a 1.8 kg baby boy.
The minor had approached the SC to terminate her pregnancy after she underwent sonography on August 9. The class VII student has three siblings. She was sexually assaulted inside her house by a 23-year-old man, who worked with her father, a food vendor.
