Nobody knows where the 16-year-old frail pregnant girl did come from when she was found writhing in pain in the premises of the Government Hospital at Kuppam on August 1. Some persons had reportedly dumped the crying girl on the hospital compound and left. The next day, she gave birth to a premature female baby. After a week-long treatment in the ICU, the baby was shifted to the SVRR Hospital in Tirupati on August 8, when its condition turned critical. Finding its mother mentally challenged, the ICDS and police officials are trying to locate her address. The incident came to light on Wednesday.
The duty doctors in Kuppam hospital said all care was taken for the delivery the moment they noticed the pregnant girl. As the baby weighed one and half kg, it was kept under incubator care. “For about a week, the paramedical staff fed the mother, allowing the newborn to feed on mother’s milk at intervals. When the baby’s condition turned serious, it was shifted to the sick newborn care unit in Tirupati hospital. The mother has been kept under the care of the ICDS staff,” District Coordinator of Health Services T. Saralamma told The Hindu .
The paramedical staff at the Kuppam hospital said they found handling the girl a Herculean task for a week. “Except for muttering some words in Kannada, she would continue to cry and shout at us. Each time we took the infant to her for milk, we struggled a lot getting the baby back to incubator. She would not part with the baby. She would yell at us, pounce on us to bite. Our best efforts to know her whereabouts failed,” a senior paramedical staff said. Kuppam CI M. Rajasekhar said a sub-inspector and his team made inquiries about her whereabouts but in vain. “Except for muttering some Kannada words, there is no clarity in her speech. A number of trains pass through Kuppam railway station towards Chennai and Bengaluru, in addition to several inter-State buses. We will also scrutinise the CC camera footage in Kuppam,” he said.
