New Delhi: A 23-year-old woman patient battling for life on a hospital bed at AIIMS, New Delhi, who too was in a comatose condition — gave birth to a baby girl. The woman patient hailing from Bulandshahr in Uttar Pradesh met with an accident when she traveled on a bike along with her husband.
The woman sustained life-threatening injuries on the head and doctors from the AIIMS performed multiple surgeries on her to save the patient. The fatal accident happened on March 31, and she was also not wearing a helmet at the time of the accident. After receiving fatal multiple injuries on her head, the doctors at the AIIMS were successful in saving the patient's life. But the patient has not come out of the vegetative state, even after the lapse of seven months.
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Dr. Deepak Gupta, professor of neurosurgery at AIIMS, said, "The patient opens her eye but she is not in a position to understand anything or give a reply to a query. Had the woman patient been wearing a helmet at the time of the accident, her pace of recovery could have been faster. Perhaps she would have recovered by now. The patient's husband was a driver by profession and was working at a private company. But after the accident, he left the job to take care of his wife."
When the woman patient was brought to AIIMS for treatment, she was carrying forty days pregnancy. A team of gynecologists from the hospital after examining the patient arrived at a conclusion that it was not necessary to terminate the pregnancy. The baby's growth in the mother's womb was healthy. Hence, doctors left the onus on the victim's family whether they wanted to medically terminate the pregnancy.
Later, the woman patient's husband decided not to terminate the pregnancy and decided to take care of the child after the birth. The woman patient is unable to breastfeed the newborn. Hence, the baby is given milk orally, said Dr. Gupta.