Sri Ramachandra Hospital, Chennai has conducted a week long awareness camp on surgical needs for children with congenital problems and other cases like pain in testicles and intussusceptions (part of intestine going into intestine).

“In some children there is need for surgical intervention soon after birth due to congenital problems which can be identified with antenatal ultrasound. In other cases post-birth young boys develop pain in testicles, and due to shyness they do not discuss it with parents in time and delay it for some days. If reported to a paediatric surgeon within three hours of pain it can be treated easily. Otherwise these children could lose their testicles and reproduction capacity,” said Dr Prakash Agarwal, professor, Paeditric Surgery, Sri Ramachandra Hospital.

Another frequent problem in young children is intussusceptions that occur when the child discontinues breast feeding and goes into substitutes and semi solid and solid food. These children have one part of the intestine going into the other. These babies will have blood in their stools. If rushed to hospital within six hours they can be cured by non-operative technique like ultrasound guided saline reduction. If delayed they may have gangrene of the intestine leading to sepsis, vomiting and requiring urgent operation and cutting the dead intestine and joining them, said Dr Agarwal.