About three weeks, a baby born to a techie couple was discharged in good health, three days after delivery. High sodium content in a baby can lead to convulsions, coma and eventually death.

Two days later, the couple came back with the baby, complaining that it was not feeding at all and more importantly appeared to be listless and lethargic. On checking the baby, it was found to be severely dehydrated. Medical Director, Lakeside Hospital H Paramesh told Deccan Herald that the baby had been only on a diet of breast milk, so they were surprised to see it dehydrated.

The parents who did not want to be identified also said that baby was refusing to drink breast milk. “If the baby had not been treated in this condition, it could have died in the next 48 hours.”

He also said that 10 per cent of body weight loss is normal in a newborn in the first 15 days, but this baby had suffered a loss of 18 per cent body weight.

After administering IV fluids, blood tests were conducted immediately to detect the kind of dehydration, the baby was suffering from. The results showed an astonishingly high level of sodium content (159 milliequivalent) in the baby. Classified as hypertonic dehydration, this situation arises when there is high sodium content as opposed to water and is seen only in five percent of cases. In almost all the cases, the reason is external, like the feeding of salt water to the baby or direct ingestion of electrol powder or even intake of skimmed milk powder which consists salt.

High sodium
In this case, since the baby had not ingested anything but the mother’s milk, they tested the breast milk and saw that the milk had high sodium content (65 milliequivalent). The doctors were so surprised by the result that they had the mother tested again after 24 hours at two different labs! The results were the same. The mother had no history of any other diseases and both the child and mother had perfectly normal endocrinal functions.

They further tested the taste of milk and found out that it indeed tasted salty, which explained why the baby was refusing to drink it.

Dr Paramesh said that they had never encountered a case of this kind. In fact, after searching through the medical journals, the doctors found a similar case, that was reported in Los Angeles in 1980, where the baby had died after getting severely dehydrated. In both the cases, no reason could be established for the high sodium content in the milk.

The baby has now been put on a diet of formula milk and is making good progress.