A three-month-old baby girl was reunited with her birth parents after being abandoned in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) of a hospital in Kochi. The baby, named Nidhi, was under the care of a child care institute recognised by the Ernakulam Child Welfare Committee (CWC) after being left behind by her parents, both natives of Jharkhand, in January this year. On Monday, April 28, they came looking for the child after being alerted by the police.
On January 29, the child’s parents, who worked in a fish farm located in Kottayam, were travelling to Jharkhand for the delivery. But the mother experienced severe labour pain, and they went to Ernakulam General Hospital, where the baby girl was born. Only 28 weeks old and weighing less than a kilogram, the baby was shifted to the NICU for specialised treatment, and later, the parents disappeared from the hospital.
The child was then put under expert care upon orders from Health Minister Veena George. After one and a half months, her condition improved, and the baby, then weighing 2.5kg, was handed over to the CWC. The private hospital expenses were covered by the Bal Nidhi Fund of the Women and Child Development Department.
The baby’s parents were traced with the help of a police contingent from Jharkhand, which visited Kerala. Though the parents were initially charged with abandonment and cruelty, the charges were reportedly dropped after they were questioned.
While making arrangements for the reunion, the police said that the family is from a marginalised background, and the private hospital expenses may have caused panic initially.
Meanwhile, the CWC said that it will only hand over the child after assessing the parents’ capacity to safely look after her.
