Coimbatore: Despite not being a tertiary care centre, the Tirupur government hospital ensured that a 550g baby survived and gained enough weight to be discharged. The baby was intensely monitored till his organs were matured, kept on respiratory assistance till he breathed on his own and fed till he latched on breastfeed on his own. This is the lowest weight baby that the hospital has handled so far. Even the region’s tertiary care centre--Coimbatore GH’s lowest weighing baby that survived was around 650g.
The mother, Bhuvaneshwari, 25, and her husband Udhaykumar, 28, reside at Pandiyan Nagar in Tirupur. The couple thought that Bhuvaneshwari was having abortion when she started bleeding in her sixth month of pregnancy on July 27. They rushed her to Tirupur GH, where doctors immediately performed a c-section and took the child out.
The head of the hospital’s neonatal ward, Dr Priya, said the baby was born at 24 weeks of pregnancy and was a handful in size.
“All the organs were present but had not matured. The neonate was given surfactant and put on CPAP, continuous positive airway pressure, and other medications to prevent infections and respiratory issues. We started on his tube feed early, and once he was stable, Kangaroo mother care was started,” she said. “This enabled the baby to gain weight,” she said. “We never expected the baby to survive, because baby’s survival rates born before 28 weeks are low. Many of these babies take time to even cross 1kg,” she added.
However, CPAP was taken off the baby in a week and started drinking milk orally a couple of weeks later and then even learned to latch on.
By Wednesday, the baby had gained 1.46kg.