Madhya Pradesh-hospital-newborn-death-case

A newborn girl was allegedly strangled to death, within 16 hours of her birth, at a hospital in Madhya Pradesh’s Ashoknagar district, with police now probing the family members.

The baby, born to a couple from the Chanderi area, was admitted to the hospital shortly after birth and was being kept under medical observation. By Saturday afternoon, she was dead.

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What initially appeared to be a sudden deterioration in the newborn’s condition became a suspected murder after doctors noticed marks around her neck and blood coming from her mouth.

“An initial medical investigation showed that there were some marks on the infant’s neck. Furthermore, blood was also spotted on her face. We are questioning the infant’s family members,” said a police officer.

Police said the examination subsequently found “ligature or compression marks around the baby’s neck, indicating that she could have been strangled,” the officer said.

The finding prompted investigators to reconstruct the few hours between her admission and her death, including who had handled the baby, who had entered the ward and when she was last seen alive.

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The baby was born late on Friday night, around 11.50 pm, and was admitted to the Special Newborn Care Unit (SNCU) soon after.

She was found dead between about 3 pm and 4 pm on Saturday, less than 16 hours after her birth.

A health official from the district said hospital staff immediately took the newborn to the SNCU after she was found unresponsive.

“Doctors examined the child and found that she had already died. The baby had blood coming from her mouth and marks resembling pressure around her neck. Given these circumstances, the hospital treated the death as suspicious and informed the police, following which the body was sent for post-mortem examination,” the official said.

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The newborn was the second daughter of her parents. Investigators are, therefore, examining whether the baby’s gender and the family’s circumstances could have played a role in her killing.

The possibility of a family member being responsible for the death has emerged also because access to the child was restricted. Besides, the absence of CCTV cameras inside the SNCU has also made it difficult to immediately ascertain how she was killed.