Newborn Gets a Lease of Life at Shrimad Rajchandra Hospital A premature and very low birth-weight baby, born at the 7th month of pregnancy and weighing a mere 1.3 kg, was delivered at a local hospital via caesarean section. During the process of delivery, the baby developed respiratory distress and needed to be put on airway support. The newborn was referred to Shrimad Rajchandra Hospital and immediately admitted to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). The team of doctors stabilised the baby and started broad-spectrum antibiotics to control the infection. After stabilising the baby and securing the airway, an emergency procedure of opening the abdomen(laparotomy) had to be performed to treat the newborn as he developed distended abdomen. Operating a premature baby with very low birth-weight for open laparotomy is a very high-risk procedure and chances of survival are very slim. The newborn was found to have a rare condition known as Meckel’s diverticulum – a bulge in the lower part of the small intestine which needs immediate removal otherwise the baby has risk of infection and death. The baby was successfully operated by the team of surgeons and received thorough care in the NICU post surgery. Thus, due to the collaborative efforts of the surgeons and the NICU team, after 19 days of meticulous treatment and care, the baby’s health improved and he began tolerating spoon-feeding as well as breast-feeding and was discharged successfully. Performing such advanced surgical procedures in the tribal area of South Gujarat shows that Shrimad Rajchandra Hospital truly is a centre of surgical excellence.
