700-gram baby gets a new lease of life after successful surgery at AIIMS

New Delhi: A 27-week premature baby got a new lease of life after the All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS) conducted a rare surgery on 700-gram baby, whose food and breathing pipe were interconnected and due to which the baby was not able to breath and drink milk. Dr Shilpa Sharma, a pediatric surgeon at AIIMS, who had performed the surgery, said that such kind of surgery has been done for the first time in the country on a premature baby. The 700-gram baby had been referred to AIIMS from Rohtak and was admitted to paediatric ward, AIIMS.

She also added that later the baby was diagnosed with a disease called esophageal atresia. In this disorder, the respiratory hose and food pipe are connected to each other. In this case, the baby girl had a block in the food pipe, and the food pipe coming up from the stomach was joined to the breathing tube instead of going straight. "This gave the child two problems. First, any thing eaten or drunk from the mouth was not going inside. Second, because the food pipe was joined in the tube, she was also struggling to breathe. In such cases, the doctors immediately put the child on the ventilator. This baby was just 27 weeks at birth. Blood pressure was low and the baby was in a shock. Food pipe was divided into two parts. This gap was more than three cm, so it was not easy to add," she added.

The doctor also added that due to the closure of the food pipe, the milk came out and turned into a foam in the mouth, which could push the baby towards pneumonia. She added that the situation was so bad that even saliva was not going inside the mouth of the child. Her chances of survival was very low.

Dr Shilpa said, "We conducted a long surgery and pulled out the food pipe which was attached to the tube of breath and then added it in the food pipe coming from the top. This surgery was very rare because the baby's weight was very low, its tube was too narrow, it was not easy to remove it. There could also be an infection."

"The baby was put on ventilator and taken off from the ventilator after 13 days. She had an infection, which had spread to the intestine but it was later cured. Now the baby's weight has increased from 700 grams to 1.6 kg and the baby girl has been discharged from the hospital," Dr Shilpa added.