india

Updated: Mar 06, 2017 21:59 IST

A 10-day-old from Assam, diagnosed with meconium aspiration syndrome -- a condition in which the baby’s stool enters its lungs -- was successfully airlifted to a New Delhi hospital, after intervention of the Prime Minister Minister’s Office (PMO), doctors said on Monday.

The doctors said that the newborn girl child was brought from Assam’s Dibrugarh to Sir Ganga Ram Hospital (SRGH) for life-saving treatment, after the PMO intervened to ensure a traffic-free passage for the medical transport team.

According to the doctors, the child was admitted to the hospital on Saturday evening.

“The child suffers from a rare medical problem in which the baby passes stool in the mother’s womb and it enters the lungs creating extreme respiratory problems,” chairman of Neonatology at SRGH Neelam Kler told IANS.

“Meconium aspiration syndrome leads to low oxygen and poor ventilatory effort. The pressure on the newbaby’s lungs remains high. The profusion is poor and keeps the clean and unclean blood mixed in the mother’s womb,” said Kler.

Kler, a prominent Neonatology expert, said that the baby required very high ventilatory support when brought to the hospital, as she had extreme breathing difficulty in lungs, followed by kidney functions.

“She was very weak and brought on a ventilator through a transport team. She also had bleeding in her lungs. Immediately she was put on a system of medication to improve profusion in the body, which is through pumping of the heart,” she said.

According to Kler, after severe medical attention, the baby’s blood pressure has improved and is currently undergoing medication to improve profusion.

“However, she is still on very high ventilator settings. Because in such cases there are chances for the baby to deteriorate as such cases have very high mortality. She is stable right now but not completely out of danger,” she said.

Parents of the newborn remained unreachable despite being contacted over phone.