BELAGAVI: As many as 220 babies were born on the first day of the year (January 1) in the district, according to the Health Department. The number is the highest in the state.
Medical records show that more than 50 percent of the babies were the first child of their parents and about 20 per cent were second child.
More than 95 percent of the deliveries on the day were cesarean sections.The number of childbirths in the district on the day was 75 percent more than the average birth per day. Maternity hospitals said they conducted cesareans only on the women who were expected to deliver within five days.
Those babies were fully grown in the womb and the delivery was conducted only after the risk-bearing undertaking from the parents, they said.
Women and Child Development Department officials said about 60 percent of the babies were female and a couple got male twins. All the babies and mothers are doing fine, they added.
“The medical law of the nation permits doctors and maternity hospitals to conduct delivery of fully grown babies which completed nine months and nine days in the womb and all the doctors have followed the rules”, a medical officer said.
One of the maternity hospitals which conducted about a dozen deliveries on the day, said its staff worked round-the-clock from the first hour of the day. Almost all the parents gave tips to the staff, it said.
A woman doctor of private maternity home said four of her ‘patients’ who were expected to deliver their first babies in the first or second week of January, wanted babies on January 1. As the babies in the womb were grown fully, the deliveries were conducted on the day.