BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

The premature baby girl abandoned at Raja Isteri Pengiran Anak Saleha (Ripas) Hospital two weeks ago is now out of danger and breathing by herself, without the help of a ventilator, said a specialist neonatologist yesterday.

Dr Suresh Chandran told The Brunei Times that the baby will be moved from the Special Baby Care Unit (SCBU) to a low-dependency unit for infants because of her improved condition.

“She is off all machines and it is possible that within a week’s time she can be released from the hospital,” he stated, assuming that she continues to feed normally.

The infant is being fed a special milk formula containing a digestive protein every three hours from nurses at the SCBU, and is still building up towards her “full feeding requirements”.

Weighing only 1.95kg, the baby girl “will not gain any weight for 10 to 15 days” after birth, which is consistent with newborns, said Dr Suresh. He is optimistic the baby will make a full recovery.

Once the infant is well enough to leave the hospital, a committee made up of officials from Ripas, the Ministry of Health and other governmental agencies will decide what happens to her next.

“At this stage, no decision has been made about where she will end up,” said the doctor, commenting that it is still unknown whether the baby will become a ward of the state or be placed in a foster home. “For the time being, the CEO of Ripas is acting as her guardian.”

The neonatologist added that if the mother of the baby girl does not come forward, the child will go through standard adoption procedures.

The premature infant was found abandoned in the basement parking lot of Ripas Hospital in the early hours of May 26, with the placenta and umbilical cord still attached.

She was rushed to the Intensive Care Unit with breathing problems and respiratory distress and required several drugs to maintain her blood pressure.

Police and hospital officials had appealed for the mother to come forward as the infant was in desperate need of breast milk to ensure proper nutrition. Doctors feared that feeding the baby normal powdered milk formula may put the baby at risk of developing a condition affecting her intestines and would impact her ability to tolerate milk formula in the future.

After this news was reported by the local media, several mothers contacted Ripas Hospital offering to donate their expressed breast milk but due to legal considerations at the time, hospital officials could not give the baby another woman’s breast milk without the consent of the mother or a guardian.

The Women and Child Abuse Investigation Unit reported that since January, there have been three reported cases of abandoned babies.

The Brunei Times

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