The amazing story of “Train Bai”, the premature baby born in a bathroom on a running train yesterday was read and discussed around the world. The tiny infant slipped down the toilet drain and landed on the railway tracks below only to be rescued, apparently unharmed, a few hours later and reunited with her parents shortly thereafter. Friends of mine in the United States, Australia and the UK sent me CNN and New York Times links for the harrowing tale and everyone agreed that the child’s survival was nothing short of a miracle.
But let’s not let the story end there. In all the rejoicing and wonder, let’s be mindful of the fact that if ever a baby needed Early Intervention, it’s this one.
Premature. Very Low Birth Weight. Trauma on Delivery. Unattended Birth. Possible Hypothermia. Any one of these factors would be reason enough to seek an assessment and the earliest possible intervention. All of them together simply cry out for action.
Why early intervention? As in so many other things in life, the sooner you start, the easier it is. Studies have shown that the earlier a child with disabilities gets started on therapy or education, the better that child will do. And when a child has multiple risk factors, as little Train Bai certainly does, speed is even more critical.
Early identification of potentially handicapping conditions is the key to early intervention and successful rehabilitation. For this reason, it is routine in many countries for all babies to be examined by trained professionals on several occasions during the first year of life and for them to undergo a number of screening tests.
In India, infants are not routinely screened, nor is there follow-up of most “high risk” babies. Consequently, many children with potentially treatable disorders are not identified and many more with disabilities do not benefit from therapy which could significantly reduce their handicaps.
There is an urgent need throughout the country for centers staffed by experienced professionals where young children can be assessed and receive intensive therapy. Such centres also provide children with an opportunity to play with others and enhance the development of social and communication skills. In addition, families benefit from ongoing counseling and support, as well as the chance to meet other parents/siblings in similar situations.
I work in Dehradun with the Latika Roy Foundation, an organization dedicated to providing creative therapy and education to children with multiple disabilities. We started with a school, and in our first year (1996), the average age of children coming for assessment was 6 years, with less than 20% under 5. All of these children had disabilities which could have been diagnosed during the first year of life and would have benefited considerably from early intervention: many children with severe physical disabilities had already developed contractures, a number had been mistakenly viewed as mentally retarded and two with hypothyroidism had already suffered irreversible brain damage.
Today, after intensive awareness work with doctors, parents, educators and the local community, almost 80% of the children we assess are under five, with many coming in the first year of life. That’s a wonderful sign of progress here in Dehradun, where pediatricians now form over 60% of our referral base and where many of our own parents motivate friends and neighbors to seek advice and assessment.
Early Intervention just makes sense. The brain is growing rapidly during the early years of a person’s life and it is able to adapt and acquire new skills at a rate it will never achieve in later years. Think how easily a child can learn a new language as compared to an adult. Babies and young children are like sponges, absorbing every new thing we offer them because that is the nature of growth.
When we opened Karuna Vihar school, we soon discovered that the younger a child was when she was admitted, the faster her progress. Those kids who came to us after seven or eight had a harder time and learned more slowly. And so we established the Early Intervention Centre. The youngest child we’ve had so far was just ten days old.
We have seen remarkable things happen – and because it is a family-based program, the results are not just with the kids. Mothers, fathers and grandparents have also had their lives transformed. Because Early Intervention benefits everyone. Kal kare, so aaj kar; aaj kare so ub!
Little Train Bai was in a hurry to be born. As a nation, we owe it to her to be equally swift in providing the Early Intervention services she now desperately requires.
