A devastatingly rare skin disease makes this three-week-old infant look like she’s 60. What’s appalling is that her parents have abandoned her right after birth because the mother was embarrassed by the way she looks.
Benjamin Button Disease?
Born prematurely on 31st May, in the seventh month of pregnancy, the yet-to-be-named baby girl is struggling to survive in Mumbai’s Wadia Hospital.
A battery of tests are being done on her to diagnose the exact medical condition, but doctor’s say, this is a very rare chromosomal abnormality which makes her look prematurely old.
The girl was born in Dhanau, a coastal district 150 km off Mumbai and weighed a little over 800 gms. The average birth weight for a girl is 2.4 kgs in India.
Her parents, Mamata and Ajay Dode, both 25-years-old were horrified to look at their newborn and refused to accept her. They were expecting the infant to resemble their first child, a 3-year-old girl. The mother did not even feed her.
The infant’s grandfather, a 50 year old labourer, fed her goat milk for a week, so she survived. When her condition deteriorated, he got the baby to Mumbai’s Wadia Hospital for treatment.
I am thankful to the hospital for giving free medical treatment to my granddaughter. It is really disheartening that even her parents have rejected her, but I will go to any extent to save her. My son and his wife had been expecting a healthy child, but were left in horror when their new baby was born with unusual features.
–Ajay Dhode, Baby’s Grandfather
A team of doctors at Mumbai’s Wadia Hospital are treating the girl round-the-clock free of cost. She is being fed breast milk from the Human Milk Bank and her weight has now increased to 910 gms.
Her condition is improving but still critical. She has an extremely low birth weight and growth retardation. There are fusions in some areas of the brain. We are awaiting the results of an MRI and till then treating the infection with antibiotics. She’s born with a rare abnormality and we are still evaluating the exact disease she has.
– Dr Minnie Bodhanwala, CEO, Wadia Hospital
The Silver Lining
The Wadia Hospital staff and the infant’s grandfather are the real heroes in this story. Without them, the baby would have died.
My only hope is that she gets well and lives a normal life. I will try to convince her parents to accept her, but if they still refuse, I will raise her myself. It is not her fault to have been born different.
– Ajay Dhode, Baby’s Grandfather
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