Miracle baby survives death; Uses brown fat for survival
A grieving father who was digging a grave for his stillborn baby girl in north India was shocked to find a newborn baby girl buried alive.
Hitesh Kumar Sirohi, a trader from the rural Bareilly district in Uttar Pradesh state, was digging a pit to bury the body of his newborn daughter when he heard crying nearby and found the abandoned infant inside a burial pot three metres underground.
She’d been wrapped in a cloth and placed inside a clay pot, before being buried two feet underground. Sirohi said that he removed the baby from the pot and fed her some milk before taking her to the nearby hospital. She is currently undergoing treatment in a private hospital and the staff has named her Sita. “We are now trying to find the parents of the baby. We will take strict action against those who have buried the infant alive,” a police spokesperson said.
The paediatrician treating the baby girl said that she most likely spent over 48 hours in the grave and burnt brown fat in her body for survival. He also added that he is expecting the baby girl to make a full recovery.
Brown fat or brown adipose tissue helps infants survive the extreme cold by burning fatty acids and glucose as their body is too underdeveloped for shivering thermogenesis. Dr Ravi Khanna said that the premature baby, whose umbilical cord had already fallen, showed signs of life despite her platelet count dropping to 10,000 from a normal range of 1.5 lakh.
“We are trying to maintain her body temperature as it drops randomly due to the absence of fat. Yet, she is responding to treatment and showing signs of improvement. We are now feeding her through a tube and her body has accepted premature baby formula as well. However, the antibiotics and intensive care will continue until the infection in her blood is gone,” he added.
Police have launched an investigation, though it is believed to be the latest case of attempted female infanticide in Uttar Pradesh. In January, a similar case emerged where a three-week-old baby girl was found buried alive in Rajasthan state. Later, the passers-by pulled and rescued her from the shallow grave.
Source: ET Health world, Scroll.in, Telegraph, abc.net