Born premature & abandoned, Kerala nurses nurture Jharkhand couple's baby back to life

When she was barely three weeks old, her parents from Jharkhand abandoned her. For the past month, the medical staff of Ernakulam General Hospital have taken care of her. She has a name now: Nidhi, meaning treasure in Malayalam. She will now grow up at the care home under the Child Welfare Committee, Ernakulam.
Nidhi will be shifted from the General Hospital to the CWC on Thursday.

Her parents, Mangaleswar and Ranjitha, are from Jharkhand and worked at a fish farm in Kottayam. Ranjitha went into labour while she was travelling by train to her home town and she was admitted to Ernakulam General Hospital in January where she delivered a baby girl.

Nidhi weighed below 1 kg and she was transferred for advanced treatment to a private hospital. Later, the parents disappeared, and attempts by the hospital authorities to contact Mangaleshwar failed.

The state government then decided to take responsibility for the baby. A medical board was constituted for her treatment. She was given oxygen for a week and twice administered blood as she suffered from anemia. Nidhi was fed using the milk from the breast milk bank in the hospital. She is now being given multi-vitamins and iron drops.

The baby is now 37 weeks old and weighs 2 kg. The authorities said that she can now drink milk like any other normal, healthy baby. She has been under the watchful eyes of the nurses at the hospital's newborn care unit. A team led by Dr Viji and Dr Vineetha supervised the baby's treatment.