This article was originally published by The Daily Mail
A newborn baby girl who was found buried alive three feet underground in India has returned to full health less than two months later. The baby girl, whose parents are unknown, was barely breathing when she was rescued by a woman who was at a funeral for her own stillborn child in Bareilly district, in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. She had been found in a clay pot buried three feet underground, and was believed to have been receiving a small amount of oxygen through pores in the soil.
When she arrived at hospital the baby weighed only 2.5lbs, had a dangerously low platelet count and a lung infection. The newborn, who was three days old at the time, has now gained weight and has normal lung functions and platelet count, her doctor told the BBC.
Police believe her parents to have been complicit in the burial after no one came forward when her story went viral. She was found in mid-October by labourers who were digging a grave for the stillborn child of Vaishali and Hitesh Kumar in Bareily in Uttar Pradesh.
‘My wife had given birth to a stillborn child at a private hospital in Rampur Garden locality of the city,’ Hitesh said. ‘We took the baby to a crematorium where the labourers were digging a grave. Suddenly, a labour’s spade hit a pot. It was kept in a bag. ‘When they took the bag out, they found a baby wrapped in a cloth. She was alive and crying.
‘At one point I thought my daughter has come alive but the voice was actually coming from the pot. ‘We couldn’t understand much and asked the guard to have a look at it. When the pot was opened, a baby girl was kept inside. ‘I immediately called ambulance and informed police to ensure that her life was saved.’
At the time Hitesh and his wife expressed a desire to adopt the newborn, but the mandatory wait period before she is put up for adoption is yet to expire. Until it does she will remain in the custody of the local child welfare authorities who took charge of the baby girl after she was given a clean bill of health by the pediatric hospital and her doctor, Ravi Khanna.
Dr Khanna said she must have been surviving in the clay pot on her ‘brown fat’ – a special type of fat that babies are born with on their thighs, abdomen and cheeks that they can survive off for a short time. Police officers have opened a case against “unknown persons” for her live burial, but are not sure of the motive.
In India, where girls are often seen as a financial burden and discriminated against, killing female babies after birth is not uncommon.
Read also: India newborn girl found in shallow grave ‘fighting for life’
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