Baby weighing 830 grams survives after 56-day battle, thanks to government hospital

A newborn girl, who weighed only 830 grams at the time of birth, fought for her life for 56 days and emerged victorious. She was discharged after her weight increased to 1,290 grams.

The baby with extremely low birth weight (ELBW) was admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at the district hospital in Dholpur, which is chief minister Vasundhara Raje’s home district.

Dholpur district hospital Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) in-charge and senior specialist paediatrics Dr Vijay Singh said that Vidhyawati, wife of Brijesh Sharma, a resident of Dholpur, had delivered twins at a private hospital in Agra on April 10, 2018. She delivered a boy weighing 1,500 grams and a girl with extreme LBW of 830grams and both were admitted to the ICU. Dr Singh said after a day, the boy was discharged, but the girl was kept in ICU for six days, after which the private hospital referred the baby girl to the tertiary care centre.

As there are no tertiary care centres in Dholpur, the parents brought the baby to the district hospital.

“We told the parents that efforts would be made to save the baby,” said Dr Singh. He said that when the baby was admitted she was suffering from hypothermia (when the body loses heat faster than it produces), hypoglycaemia (low blood sugar), hypocalcaemia (low calcium level in blood serum), was severely anaemic and could not drink milk. The baby was suffering from a cold and her lungs, intestine and liver had not matured. She was kept at the NICU. After seven days, she was fed through a tube and also received two blood transfusions.

The doctor said that the baby started responding to treatment and her weight started increasing. Later, she was fed mother’s milk from the Aanchal Mothers’ Milk Bank, as her mother did not have enough milk.

Dr Singh said after 56 days on June 10 the baby was discharged after she weighed 1,290 grams. The medical team kept going to her house to monitor her condition.

The baby started taking regular feed and her weight increased to 1600 grams on June 18 and by July 10 she weighed 1,750 grams.

The paediatrician said that the baby received her vaccination dose after attaining 3.5 months. “Now, she is like any normal baby and will gain normal weight with age,” Dr Singh added.

The state has 60 NICUs at hospitals attached to medical colleges, district hospitals and sub-divisional hospitals.

Health secretary Naveen Jain said, “Dholpur is a high-priority aspirational district and such incidents give a lot of morale boost not only to the local staff at the hospital but also to officers like us.”