Pune: The doctors couldn’t believe what they were seeing. It was Aug 6, and on the surgery table before them was a one-year-old child whose liver was completely upside down and pushed inside the thorax. Other organs were not in their place either: the large intestine, appendix, part of the stomach and the right kidney were all crammed into the chest cavity, pushing against the lungs and even shifting the heart to the other side.
Baby Raadiya had been in this condition for a year, according to the parents. In fact, she had been gasping for air since birth. Congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH) is a birth defect that occurs in about one in 2,500-3,000 live births worldwide.
It’s a condition in which a break in the diaphragm causes abdominal organs to move into the chest. But in Raadiya’s case doctors found abnormal internal damage. It was their interview with the parents that uncovered a possible cause — she was very likely administered flawed CPR at birth.
Raadiya, the parents said, was born at a primary health centre in Bihar’s Samastipur district, in a village called Shiura. She was critical at birth. “My child was gasping for air so the doctors had to give her CPR,” mother Raunak Parveen said.
“She had to be fed via tubes too, but the tube was not fixed properly because when we fed her milk, it leaked out of the tube that was inserted into her chest. Later, the doctors removed the tube and discharged Raadiya, without treating her breathlessness," Parveen sai.