Another surgery conducted on Falak

Battered baby Falak continues to be critical after she underwent yet another surgery, this time to connect her brain to abdomen to help circulation of fluid.

Doctors at the All India Institute of Medical Science said the two-year-old baby was operated upon early Monday morning.

“The operation was conducted around 5.30 a.m. It was a three-hour long surgery,” Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery Deepak Agarwal told IANS.

“Water that should be circulated in the whole body got collected in the brain, thus putting pressure on the head that could be fatal for her,” he said.

“The surgery could not be performed earlier due to infection in her brain. Now that it is down, this surgery could be conducted,” he said.

During the surgery, a tube was implanted connecting her brain to her abdomen.

This is the fifth surgery that Falak has undergone since she was admitted to the hospital on Jan 18.

Agarwal said the baby’s condition continues to be the same, and the next step would be to take her off the ventilator support.

“We are trying to reduce the pressure in the ventilator to see if she can cope up with it… if she is coping well, we might take her off the ventilator,” he said.

The doctor also said that Falak might develop side effects due to this shunt surgery, like blocks in future. Whenever such problem occurs, the blockage in shunt would need to be removed.

Falak was admitted to the AIIMS Jan 18 by a 15-year-old girl who claimed to be her mother. The baby was in a critical condition as her skull was fractured and she bore human bite marks all over her tiny frame.