Newborn babies continue to die at the neo-natal intensive care unit (NICU) of the government hospital here as parents watch helplessly.
In the early hours of Monday, five more babies died, four due to preterm birth complications.
Ironically, it was World Prematurity Day, observed to raise awareness of preterm birth.
In the last 48 hours, 11 newborn babies, including seven girls, died despite neo-natal care.
Of the five newborns that died on Monday, three were male, who were above the normal weight of 2.6 kg, and two were female, weighing 1.6 kg and 1.9 kg. Four suffered from severe birth asphyxia and one from Sepsis and seizures, doctors said. Incidentally, these were the first pregnancies for all the mothers, four of who were barely 21-years and one 26-year-old.
The death of the babies was primarily due to severe birth asphyxia, very low birth weight and a combination of complications linked to preterm births, doctors said.
The doctors at Level 3 of the NICU are battling to save babies that weigh as low as 700 gm and 900 gm.
“Not all preterm babies have low survival chances. We try to save each of them. Of the 86 babies being treated at present, one-third is preterm babies,” says Dr. Kumaravelu of NICU.
Even as he was speaking, four babies continue to be under ventilator support. “We have eight ventilators but as of now only four babies require artificial respiration,” he says.
“Our job is to treat the baby, irrespective of its survival rate. We cannot turn back a baby, solely because the survival chances are less than five per cent,” says Elangovan, Dean of Medicine.
