SMGS Hospital saves 24-week ‘miracle baby’ amid COVID crisis

STATE TIMES NEWS

JAMMU: India’s tiniest baby ever to survive in Government hospital, weighing just 450 grams at time of birth, has been discharged after spending 100 days in Neonatal ICU of SMGS Hospital Jammu by Principal Govt. Medical College Jammu Dr Shashi Sudan in presence of Medical superintendent Dr Manoj Chalotra and HOD Pediatrics Dr Ghanshyam Saini, who congratulated the Department of Pediatrics for achieving rare feat.
Miracle baby (named by NICU team), born in 24 weeks, along with other twin at a private nursing home at Jammu and shifted to SMGS for further management. Baby was only 450 grams when received at SMGS Hospital NICU.
Baby girl received extensive care at hands of a multi-disciplinary team of medical experts led by Dr Ghanshyam Saini, Professor& Head Pediatrics ably supported by neonatology team comprising Dr Anuj Bhatti, Associate Professor and Dr Anumodhan Gupta, Consultant Pediatrics.
Fighting all odds bravely, the baby girl survived 13 weeks of remaining in gestation in neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) to complete her 37 weeks, to be discharged in a healthy condition with a weight of 1,420 gm. This is the first of its kind successful case in Government sector hospital in India.
As per records of Indian Neonatal Collaborative (INNC), which collects records of premature babies from 20 centres across India, the youngest and smallest surviving baby is born at 22 weeks weighing 492 grams. The youngest child to survive in India is Mumbai boy born at 22 weeks weighing 620 gms.
The smallest is Hyderabad born girl weighing 375 grams at 25 weeks. Miracle baby has the lowest birth weight among infants in the Government sector in India.
According to WHO, India tops the list of 10 nations contributing 60 per cent of the world’s premature deliveries with 3.5 million babies, i.e. 24 per cent of the total live births are born before term gestation every year in India.
While WHO defines ‘preterm’ as any baby born before 37 weeks of completed gestation, in India, viability is defined beyond 28 weeks and extremely premature babies (24-27 weeks) are not even counted by the statistics.
“This case gives hope to thousands of parents with high risk pregnancy and subsequent risk of prematurity as most of the times babies born before 26 weeks are not even given a chance to fight for their survival. Delivering a baby at a government tertiary care hospital with fully equipped infrastructure and antenatal preparedness increase chances of survival manifold,” said Dr Anumodan Gupta, Neonatologist of the Hospital.
Other eminent persons present on the occasion included Dr Rakesh Sharma Dy Medical Superintendent, Dr.Sanjeev Kumar Digra, Dr Ashu Jamwal, Dr Sunil Dutt Sharma, Dr Mohd Razaq, Dr Anuj Bhatti, Dr Ravi Parihar, Dr Koushal Khajuria, Dr Rajneesh Kumar, Dr Arun Gandotra, Dr Ajay Choudhary, Dr Pallavi Sharma and Dr Shah Nawaz.