I am sure that things like this have happened all my life, but it is what the internet has, that we now learn everything and it seems incredible that things like the one I am going to tell you now happen.
A five-month-old baby born prematurely has survived thanks to (or despite) spending the first months of his life in a poliespan fridge used as an incubator.
Last October Aruna Chauhan, 34, gave birth in an Indian hospital to Mithilesh, a girl who arrived two months ahead of time and who weighed about 1.5 kilos.
Upon birth, she was admitted to the neonatal ICU for finding complications associated with the thyroid and for having a risk of infection. The parents, who had few resources and had to pay for the care, came to sell their belongings and borrow money.
So they endured until after 20 days they had no money left. They requested admission to public hospitals, but were rejected for having long waiting lists to enter the ICU.
Given this situation, a doctor told them that if they could not keep the baby in the hospital they had to get a polyspan fridge, make holes for good ventilation and add a 60 watt bulb to provide heat That would be better than without any other treatment and maybe they could save the baby's life.
The parents, in this situation, heeded the advice and bought the fridge and the bulb, setting an alarm every two hours to have a temperature control and confirm that it was correct.
They confess that they had a very bad time because they were not sure it would work, but the baby survived and stayed inside until a local newspaper published an article about it.
Seeing the news a hospital offered its services for free. They commented that it was unfortunate that today, with the advances of medicine, a baby had to spend his first weeks and months in a refrigerator and explained that it could have been a deadly solution if the baby's temperature had been uncontrolled.
The baby arrived at the hospital with weighing less than 2.3 kg, totally malnourished, and there he is recovering physically from the time he spent in there, calculating the doctors who in three weeks can be back home, out of the ice box.
If he will recover psychologically I do not know, but what is clear is that it does not seem that the doctor who recommended the use of a refrigerator and a light bulb knows what the kangaroo mother method (MMC) is, by which babies are calmer, happier and well fed when they spend a lot of time in the breast of their mother and father, in skin-to-skin contact and with food on demand. In fact as well gain more weight and recover before children who do have an incubator. Imagine the difference if we talk about a baby who, poor thing, spent his first months in a fake homemade incubator. Seeing is believing.
