Doctors at Nagapattinam GH give new lease of life to baby girl born underweight

NAGAPATTINAM: A baby girl that weighed only 540 grams at birth gained 1.5 kilos over the span of 100 days, courtesy of the efforts by a team comprising nine doctors and 12 staff nurses from the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit of the Nagapattinam General Hospital.

The baby, after treatment, was discharged on Monday and handed over to her parents in the presence of District Collector Johny Tom Varghese. According to sources, Saranya of Kokur in Nagapattinam district delivered a baby girl at the Nagapattinam general hospital on April 26.

However, the child weighed only 540 grams at birth due to low amniotic fluids in the mother, sources said. Subsequently, a team of nine doctors and twelve staff nurses from the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit - under the directions of Dean Dr Jenita and Medical Superintendent Mohamed Mohideen Kadar - took care of and monitored the health of the underweight child for 100 days.

"The newborn was ailing from complications such as extreme prematurity respiratory distress syndrome and extremely low birth weight. We kept her in an incubator for two weeks and administered fluids intravenously. Then we fed the mother's milk through tubes and then we introduced breastfeeding," said Dr A Suriyaprakash, who was part of the team.

"The infant is the tenth child under 600 grams in the state whose health was improved with medical intervention. She is the lowest weighing newborn baby in Nagapattinam district," said the collector. He lauded the team of doctors. Saranya, who had been through multiple miscarriages since her marriage seven years ago, expressed gratitude to the team of doctors.

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