Baby born with protruding intestine in Patna
POSTED September 9, 2009 - 12:32 | POSTED BY Neharika Sabharwal
Last edited by Harpreet Bhagrath on September 9, 2009 - 13:30
It was supposed to be just another C-section, but the doctors at a private nursing home, where the baby was delivered, were shocked when they incised Babli Devi, 24, a resident of Nand Bigaha village. They found the infant's small intestine in a closed cavity outside the body.
The baby was immediately referred to PMCH, where she is being kept under observation in the intensive care unit.
A rare birth defect
According to the doctors of PMCH, the baby girl has been born with a malformation called exomphalos major, in which the infant’s intestine or other abdominal organs protrude out of the navel.
Dr Jawahar Prasad Gupta, paediatric surgeon attending to the baby, declared that the case was rare and the surgery could be an awkward procedure.
He stated, "The central abdominal defect has caused protrusion of small intestine outside her abdomen which is covered by membranes. Since the membrane is tough, there is no need for an urgent surgery.”
A complicated surgery
Dr Gupta stated that the surgery may be performed after two months. “This could be life- threatening if the intestine is not repositioned to its original place,” he said.
"The process of placing a six- foot- long intestine back inside a small abdomen is a complicated process. In a layman’s term, it is like stuffing two tonne of something into a sack that can accommodate only one tone," he further said.
The hospital authorities plan to carry out the corrective procedure either in the PMCH or at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Delhi (AIIMS) where a fortnight back a successful operation was performed on a ten-day-old boy with ectopia cordis (heart outside the chest).
