We are so fortunate that our Bonnie baby who is now two years old was saved at the time of his birth by the excellent care of Dr. Karthik Nagesh and his neonatal ICU team at Manipal Hospital Bangalore. During my pregnancy at the 22nd weeks, my life came crumbling down when I was informed by my earlier doctor in another hospital that the baby‘s scans suggested what is called a congenital diaphragmatic Hernia which is a condition causing the intestines, stomach, and even the liver crossing the hole in the diaphragm and coming into the chest cavity of the baby and pressing the lungs there and not allowing it to develop.
My obstetrician said this is a devastating condition and the baby may not be born alive or even after birth has very little chance of survival. Our world crumbled down at that stage. However, at the suggestions of many friends and doctors we were told to approach the best newborn and obstetric team for high-risk pregnancies in Bangalore at Manipal Hospital under the care of Dr. Gayathri Karthik, obstetrician, and Dr. Karthik Nagesh, Neonatologist, who have had excellent success with many complicated pregnancies.
On meeting them at the 24th week of my pregnancy, I and my husband were reassured by their calm and wonderful positive way of explaining to us. The positive reassurance they gave helped us carry on with the pregnancy and when I reached full term I delivered a bonny boy. Unfortunately, as expected, he was not able to breathe at birth, and immediately Dr. Karthik Nagesh and his neonatal ICU team at Manipal Hospital looked after the baby right from the word go and the baby had to be ventilated during the first two days and after the baby was stabilised well, pediatric surgeon Dr. Radhakrishnan operated on my child and treated the diaphragmatic hernia.
Subsequent to that the child required a high level of intensive care for another two and half weeks after which the child started to improve and we could bring the baby back home after stay for about a month and a half in the NICU at Manipal Hospital. We always have since then felt very indebted to Dr. Gayathri Karthik and Dr. Karthik Nagesh for having given the best of care for my child! We would not have been able to see this little while one doing so well If it had not been for the dedicated efforts of these doctors. We are full of gratitude towards them and wish to bless them with all our heart.
The treatment of complicated cases like diaphragmatic hernia is very intensive care oriented and during the time when we were faced with our baby in critical care in the hospital, we also saw more so many other parents with critically ill babies being treated by this dedicated team of doctors in the NICU. Dr. Karthik Nagesh was always confident and his calm and reassuring words were soothing to our ears and his positive attitude in the face of severe critical illness in our baby encouraged us and we felt our baby was very safe in the care of his team, especially the junior doctors in training who were very dedicated and the very dedicated neonatal nurses, some of them whom we remember like Asha and Beulah, etc.
We wish to express our gratitude with these few words on the occasion of our child’s second birthday! We wish to thank the team of doctors under Dr. Gayathri Karthik and Dr. Karthik Nagesh at Manipal Hospital Bangalore. May they continue to look after more such babies and give life to these babies which subsequently can become a joy of unbound nature to the parents and the family. God bless them!
Vijayalakshmi