A DOCTOR with Shenzhen Hengsheng Hospital has won praise for kneeling for nearly half an hour to save a pregnant woman who was expecting a pair of twins, Shenzhen TV reported.

The woman was scheduled to undergo a C-section at 8 a.m. Oct. 26, but suddenly suffered from an amniotic fluid rupture at 4 a.m. Zhang Xianxia, director of the obstetrics department at the hospital, said the woman’s umbilical cord had fallen out because one of the twins was in an incorrect position.

In seven or eight minutes, the fetus would be in danger of a vascular occlusion followed by umbilical cord prolapse. Li Jingyu, a doctor who was on duty that night, immediately went to the ward and lifted the baby’s feet with her hands to prevent umbilical cord compression.

When Zhang, the doctor in charge of carrying out the C-section, arrived at the hospital, the medical staff were moving the woman to the operating bed. Li was kneeling with her all the way from the ward to the delivery room.

Li said an aseptic sheet was being used to blindfold her at the time and she was actually a little breathless, but she hadn’t thought much about it as she just wanted the babies to be delivered soon.

Li held the baby’s feet for 27 minutes, from 4:45 a.m. to 5:13 a.m., and only breathed a sigh of relief after the second baby was born. Li said she didn’t relax until the baby came out crying very loudly. The woman has been discharged from the hospital.

In another development, a baby identified as Qiqi was recently diagnosed with an imperforate anus two days after she was born. She required an urgent operation to excrete meconium, or else it would have caused an intestinal obstruction that could be life-threatening.

Liu Hongbo, a doctor from University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen Hospital, performed a successful surgery on Qiqi and opened up an artificial anus for her in only 10 minutes.

Thanks to the medical staff’s attentive and around-the-clock care, Qiqi has recovered well and left the hospital. (Zhang Yu)