For the team of doctors, the survival of the baby was not just a challenge but a mission. The message behind the mission is “babies that are grossly under weight and are born even two months premature can survive”.
The baby of Ramaa Srisatya and Kasi Viswanath was born over two months early at just 450 grams on September 27, 2017, in the Rainbow Children’s Hospital here. The survival rate of such underweight and pre-term babies is very low. Besides underweight, the baby suffered from deformity in the heart, underdeveloped organs and other complications.
While the normal period of pregnancy is nine months (38 weeks and six days or 270 days), fetal medicine specialists talk about the age in specific terms. The period of gestation (from the first day of the last period till delivery) is 40 weeks ( i.e. 10 months). The baby spends just 37 weeks (i.e. 259 days) in the womb. This is because two weeks are required for conception and an additional five to seven days for the embryo to settle down. Any delivery before 35 weeks is considered pre-term.
Ramaa Srisatya, with a history of abortion and no other child, had a spontaneous onset of pre-term labour at 24 weeks (168 days) and the baby had to be put on ventilator immediately because its lungs were not fully formed. Paediatrician and neonatologist Vami Sivarama Raju said the baby had to be given fat and protein intravenously. While the Patent Dustus Arteriosus (PDA), heart deformity, was treated medically, an inguinal hernia which developed later was treated surgically. The biggest challenge was finding the blood vessels for the PICC (peripherally inserted central catheter) lines. The blood vessels of the baby were hairline thin, Dr. Raju said.
The baby was on ventilator for a week, incubator for two months and in intensive care for 110 days, a sort of record for the hospital.
Obstetric and gynaecologist Manu Jasti said the discharge of the baby was cause for celebration for the team attending on it because often babies heavier and less premature do not make it.
Head of the Intensive Care Services Dinesh Chirla said the group of hospitals had treated successfully 750 pre-term babies. There was a misconception that babies between 500 and 600 gm do not survive. That is why this case was taken up as a mission, he said.
