"She is doing fine and all her parameters are normal."
A six-hour-old baby girl was found buried alive in Odisha, India. A passing individual found her buried under a shallow sandpit, as her feet stuck out from the pit. Her discovery took place on Saturday 25th March 2017.
Reports could not confirm the circumstances surrounding her burial.
Currently, the baby girl remains under observation at a hospital in Jajpur.
Fanindra Kumar Panigrahi, Chief Medical Officer, said: “She is doing fine and all her parameters are normal. She is a full term baby, weighing around 2.5 kg.”
“Her umbilical cord was intact and body was still covered with vernix.”
Media outlets claim the baby girl became abandoned either because her parents wanted a boy, or because her mother remained unmarried. However, the Cheif Medical Officer added:
“We are trying to track the parents of the girl. Chances are it was a case of female foeticide and it is clear that the accused wanted to kill her.”
In the meantime, the state-run child welfare committee will look after the girl when she becomes discharged from the hospital.
While the hospital saved the baby girl, Indian police have faced such crime before.
Police across India have made several other discoveries like this. On 20th March 2017, police in Delhi recovered a six-day-old baby girl abandoned on a road. In the same day, a separate incident led to police discovering a four-month foetus in a slum.
These incidents point to a worrying trend in India. Women are changing the conversation about their roles within Indian society, but there are still discrepancies. In 2013, the Justice Verma Committee report found that 60,000 babies become abandoned throughout India.
To add to this, ‘The Lancet’, a British Medical Journal, reported that for the past three decades, there have been twelve million abortions of baby girls.
These reports show some startling figures. Hopefully, the Indian government will address them properly.
Meanwhile, DESIblitz wishes the baby girl a speedy recovery.