China: saving a baby's life

With the care of the medical doctors, a Chinese infant with a rare birth defect called sirenomelia or ' fishman syndrome ' has lived for 2 weeks after being found abandoned. in addition to a pediatric hospital in Hunan Province.

According to Xu Zhiyue, head of the intensive care unit at the Hunan Children's Hospital, this baby is 21 cm tall and weighs 2.45 kg. The ultrasound results show that this is a boy. Currently the baby's health situation has stabilized.

Doctors have maintained this baby's life through peritoneal dialysis - a treatment for people who are not active, help filter the blood and waste waste and excess water from the body.

' The implementation of peritoneal dialysis for newborns is very difficult, but in this baby, the results were positive, ' said Zhu Yimin, the hospital's director.

A doctor is examining the health of a "fishman" baby (Photo: TTO)

This baby was picked up before the hospital gate on November 12. The papers in my clothes indicate that I was born on November 9. According to doctors, apart from disability sirenomelia made her legs stick together from thighs to heels, she also had many other defects such as no kidney or urinary tube, heart does not function properly, anus and non-developing external genitalia, intestinal obstruction .

Sirenomelia or ' mermaid syndrome ' occurs in 1 / 70,000 children. Most children with this disease die within a few days of birth due to many defects in vital organs of the body and due to complications related to abnormal growth and function of the kidney and bladder. .

There are only two cases of children with this disease in the world known to be alive. The third case is a 2-year-old Peruvian girl, Milagros Cerron, who had a successful leg splitting surgery last year.

Chinese doctors are currently considering surgery for a boy in Hunan. The hospital picked up the baby, who said they would pay for the surgery.

T.VY