Doctors deliver Kashmir woman’s baby over WhatsApp call

A pregnant woman in a remote border village of Jammu and Kashmir, delivered a baby assisted by doctors over a WhatsApp call last week, after relentless snowfall ruled out air evacuation.

PTI reported that Keran, the woman’s native village in the Kashmir division, was cut off from the rest of the Kupwara district after a continuous spell of snowfall and Thursday and Friday — which meant she couldn’t be airlifted despite a “history of labour complications”.

"On Friday night, we received a patient in labour at the Keran PHC with [a] history of complicated delivery with eclampsia, prolonged labour and episiotomy," explained Dr Mir Mohammad Shafi, block medical officer of Kralpora.

The situation sparked a frenzied brainstorm for alternate safe delivery methods — and an airlift to a maternity hospital in the dead of a Kashmir winter was not one of them.

Thankfully, the restoration of 4G internet services in February 2021 put the solution within arm’s reach.

Doctors and the paramedical staff at the Keran facility were guided through the childbirth by Kralpora gynaecologist Dr Parvaiz on a WhatsApp call.

A “healthy baby girl” was born six hours after the mother was induced into labour, said Dr Arshad Sofi, adding that the pair are under medical observation.

On Thursday, a pregnant woman in a “critical condition” was reportedly airlifted by the Indian Air Force from another remote village in Kashmir’s Kishtwar.

Braving heavy snowfall, Army troops responded to a distress call in Nawapachi area and stretchered the patient across snowfields onto an MI helicopter of the IAF — which then flew her out of the isolated village to a district hospital.