‘Drips can kill if not correctly inserted’

Mahikeng based general practitioner Dr Titus Mokgoro says a drip can be lethal.

“A drip can kill if not put in correctly, but there are many factors involved. I cannot say whether the baby’s death was caused by the bruises and discoloured skin or not, it’s going to be difficult without performing any tests,” he said.

Mokgoro said postmortem results were the only thing that could prove the cause of death.

He advised the family to hire a private forensic expert to be present when forensic tests were performed.

Another Mahikeng medical practitioner, Oageng Marumowa, said the drip might have caused complications for the baby. He said babies react differently to various injections.

“The side effect will be determined according to the immune system,” he said.

Marumowa said the longer the medication was allowed to drip into the tissue of an arm without running into the blood vessels, the more damage it could cause.

“The drip should only run inside the blood vessels, in this case the swollen and discoloured hand might be caused by the injection running to the baby’s tissue.

We first have to check whether the drip was put in correctly,” he said.

Marumolwa said new-born babies were often given Bacille Calmette Guerin (BCG) injections after birth, a medication meant to boost a fragile immune system.

“It protects babies from tuberculosis and other diseases,” he said.

Marumolwa said blood that came out of the baby’s nails could be due to the pressure exerted on the internal structures of the hand. “When the fluid runs in his tissue, blood will come out of the blood vessels into the surrounding struggles of the hands,” he said.