Big Head Baby

Just a couple of month back, there was a big head newborn picture were doing its round on the Facebook and it just reminded me of my childhood in Bal Mandir.

When I was young, I mean younger than ten years old [maybe], some people presumed that Bal Mandir is a place, where you take your sick baby and they will bear all the medical expenses for lifetime. Some people used to leave their loved ones, who were never ever going to recover from the kind of disease they were suffering like serious case of down syndrome and some left their mentally retarded children or disabled child.  Remember Bal Mandir is an orphanage, not an institution for sick people to habitat.

However, when I was young there used to be sick and dying children, who used to get admitted in Bal Mandir almost daily, and there used to be night rush to the hospital almost daily and so many children used to die overnight also. One of  those sick people, who used to get admitted in Bal Mandir was big head babies. As I am reading my back issue of Reader's Digest about the big head baby leah Church, the operation was not easy process even in US back in 1995. Pediatricians and neurosurgeons were full of skepticism about its end results, and they expected miracles here back in early 80s ?

Hard to believe !

Bal Mandir was used by some people to reduce the high cost of medicine bill which they could not afford,  maybe it was one of them. But how would I know, the real intention of the parents ? When the child was dying, should not the child be dead in the arms of their parents; instead of Bal Mandir ? Or they thought the child would live like nothing more than a vegetative life in future ?

So why some are born with big head  ? Initially I thought it the water in head but medicine science has better answer than what I presumed.

Hydrocephalus : it is commonly referred to as water on the brain. Doctors can't explain it exactly why, but in some babies, the brain’s normal drainage system shuts down before birth  and fluid accumulates in the head and compresses the brain tissue, which cause the big head in babies.  Operating on this type of case may cause severe retardation or blindness.

However, during my teenage periods, there were less rush to the hospitals at nights by the nannies and peons and death rate in infants and toddler section, came down drastically, almost to nil. I am trying to get it now with my grown ups brain, It  must be the decision made by the management not to take anymore sick and dying babies. By doing so, they must have discouraged many of those, who thought Bal Mandir is an institution, where they can get rid from their dying babies with huge medical cost.

Now, when I look back and try  to understand, the real intention of the parents who left their newborn  child, when the child was dying, I can't help but think; should not it be good for the child, who would have died in the arms of their parents, who decided to bring them on ? Instead, how come; I mean how come they choose to leave them in Bal Mandir ? Did they thought the child would live like nothing more than a vegetative and they could not live with the fact ?  Is this what they thought the real reason the Bal Mandir was opened for ?

Some parents are really disgusting, and you have to live your life in Bal Mandir, like me; to know how disgusting they could be at times.