20 days old and weighing 1kg, child survives brain surgery

NEW DELHI: In a rare surgery, doctors at a private hospital recently removed blood clot from the brain of a premature child who was 20 days old. His weight was 1.16kg, at which doctors said, a surgery like this has been rarely attempted.

Dr Pankaj Dawar, senior consultant, centre for brain and spine, Sarvodaya Hospital & Research Centre, where the surgery was conducted, said clot was detected on the left side of the brain.

“The child was born premature and had multiple health issues for which he was being treated at our hospital. But on the 19th day after birth, he developed seizures. MRI showed large clot on the left side of the brain, which had to be removed to save him,” he said. Though the surgery, which was conducted on September 12, was challenging, the doctors tried it to save the baby.

In a premature child, giving anaesthesia for surgery is a major challenge because, if there is any problem in calibration of dosage, other vital organs might get affected.

A team of neurosurgeons cut open the skull and removed the clot using sharp instrument and a special microscope under anaesthesia and closed the skull. Dr Dawar said the surgery took nearly two hours. “We didn’t have to put him on ventilator, which was a good sign,” the doctor said. Over the past two months, he has gained weight and is currently around 4kg and can recognise his mother.

Sarvodaya Hospital has applied for LimcaBook of Records and Guinness Book of World Records to recognise this unheard-of surgical feat.

The baby, hospital said, was one among the twins born preterm to parents Deevakar Jha and Deepa Mishra, who live in Faridabad.

Dr Sushil Singla, senior consultant and HOD, department of paediatrics at the hospital said if left untreated, the clot would have proved fatal. “Even if he had survived, he would have suffered from neural problems and the brain would not have developed fully.”