I don't want my baby to die

Mom pleads for help...
Ariti Jankie South Bureau
Friday, June 22nd 2007
BABY Joshua Williams weighed 11.5 pounds at birth on May 4, but now he weighs 6.01 pounds and is in critical condition fighting for his life at hospital.
Williams was born with a congenital deformity of the intestine, doctors at the an Fernando General Hospital said.
As a result, tubes are attached to his tiny frame for feeding and he has been burned in the process.
His 25-year-old mother of Guayaguayare has been begging for medicine and medical supplies to keep her baby alive. "I don't want my baby to die," Maria Marcano cried.
She said up until April 18, she took an ultrasound at the hospital and was reassured that her baby was small but fine.
Marcano added that on April 26, a second ultrasound was taken which showed that something was wrong with the baby's bowel. She said she was admitted to the ward on May 2 and labour was induced on May 4. She said: "I could not have the baby naturally and he had to be pulled out of me."
She believes the difficult delivery could have affected the baby.
She claimed that at birth the baby was not breathing and he was rushed into the nursery. "The next time I saw my son, he was in an incubator with tubes all over him," she said. It was then, she was told that the baby's intestines were not formed properly.
The baby had his first surgery the day after he was born. Two weeks later his stomach began to swell. He could not eat or drink.
Hospital Acting hospital Medical Director Dr Anand Chatoorgoon said the baby's foot was burned by the formula with which he was fed. He said the critical issue was not the tissue burns since that was being looked after by a plastic surgeon, but the problem was with the intestines.
Describing the child as "very sick," Chatoorgoon said the baby could not be fed through the mouth or stomach, so doctors had to feed him through the veins or he would die. "Sometimes in an intravenous feeding, as it was in this case, the feeding solution leaks out from the veins into the surrounding tissues. That is how this baby suffered the tissue burns," said Chatoorgoon.
He stressed that the burns could not be helped, because that is the only way that the baby can be fed.
In an interview with TV6 News last night, Marcano said she was told by a nurse her baby suffered tissue burns because the feeding solution leaked out.
Meanwhile, the mother said she was depending on charity to travel daily from Guayaguayare and to buy medicine for the baby.
Marcano who is diabetic and suffers with rheumatic fever, also has a two year daughter Akela .
The single parent is begging Health Minister John Rahael to intervene and make treatment available "to keep my baby alive."
Meanwhile, Dr Kerryn Brahim, consultant paediatrician at the neo-natal unit, confirmed that the baby suffered a congenital deformity of the intestine. He said that the baby started vomiting after birth and was operated upon to take out the affected segment of the bowel.
"The surgery went well," until the baby started vomiting again. He had developed adhesions (abnormal union of bodily tissues) which sent the surgeons back to operate again. A colostomy (a surgical operation that creates an opening from the colon to the surface of the body to function as an anus) was done to reduce obstruction, with the bowel opening out to the skin.
Brahim said that the baby continued to have problems with absorbing nutrition and has been feeding on intravenous fluids. The baby was starved for about 10 days to give the bowel a chance to heal.
Doctors described the baby's condition as critical.
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