The heat wave in Raichur district for the last 15 days is now showing its dreadful face: it has already killed two infants, and hospitals across the district are seeing infants being admitted with various ailments caused by acute dehydration.
In the teaching hospital attached to Raichur Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS), around 50 newborns are being treated at any given time. As per the information provided by RIMS authorities, the number of infants being admitted for dehydration-related ailments this year is more than that of last year.
“A newborn should normally urinate 6-7 times in 24 hours. For this to happen, the nursing mother must take sufficient fluids and nutritious food and breast-feed her baby once in every two hours. If the place where the newborn and nursing mother stay is not cool, the infant gets irritated and doesn’t breastfeed. This leads to dehydration, fever, and jaundice and even damages the kidneys and brain if not taken to hospital early,” said Dr. Nagaraj Javali, HOD of Paediatrics at RIMS.
Dr. Prakash H.K., a paediatrician at RIMS, said that two infants, who were brought to the teaching hospital at a very late stage, died because of kidney failure caused by dehydration and resultant rise in serum creatinine level in the blood.
Main causes
Dr. Shivappa Malipatil, paediatrician, pointed out that all most all the newborns suffering from dehydration-caused ailments were from economically weaker and socio-culturally backward sections who were not able to afford air conditioners, coolers or at least fans for providing relatively cool spaces for their babies.
“Normally, people from economically weaker sections live in tin-roofed sheds which are hotter than other homes and don’t have proper ventilation. They cannot afford cooling equipment. These people bring their babies with complaints of fever, excessive crying, and not breastfeeding, which are definitely caused by dehydration due to rise in temperature.”
When The Hindu visited his hospital, he was treating a 12-day-old baby suffering from dehydration and resultant acute renal failure. “Serum creatinine level in this baby is 6.2 mg/dl against the normal range of less than 1.4 mg/dl and blood urea is 252 mg/dl against the normal range of 10-45 mg/dl. The baby weighs just 1.5 kg against the normal weight of at least 2.5 kg. If the problem persists, it may lead to multi-organ failure including brain haemorrhage,” he said.
