A NEWBORN baby boy was abandoned inside a garbage bin outside a business establishment on Gen. Maxilom Ave., Cebu City yesterday dawn.
Mary Yosores, 50, found the baby with his umbilical cord still uncut. He was wrapped in a green cloth and placed in a grey bag and left in a drum for non-biodegradable garbage.
Petronelo Jumanguin, security guard of Cherry Court, said that at 2:50 a.m., Yosores approached him and asked for his help on what to do with the newborn baby she had found inside the drum.
Yosores and her eight-year-old granddaughter were salvaging scrap from the garbage bin when they heard a cry. They thought it was a cat meowing. The crying came from a bag. When they opened it, they found a newborn baby.
Jumanguin said he called the other security guards across the street to help him out on what to do with the baby.
He said he thought the baby was breathing with difficulty. The baby was still coated in placenta and had his umbilical cord still uncut.
At 3:15 a.m., he called the police. At 3:50 a.m. a team from the Emergency Rescue Unit Foundation (Eruf) arrived and cut the umbilical cord.
He said the baby has a fair complexion, looks like a Fil-Am and appears to be underweight.
CCMC
At 4 a.m. Eruf brought the baby to Cebu City Medical Center (CCMC).
Doctors put the baby on oxygen, and gave him intravenous fluids and antibiotics to protect him from infection.
Dr. Catherine S. Echevarre of CCMC said the baby is normal and has no skin infection and respiratory complication.
She said the baby, at 2.25 kilos, is underweight but vigorous.
The average weight of newborn babies is at least 3.4 kilos, she said.
Meanwhile, Jumanguin said that 6 a.m., a couple boarding a vehicle asked him where the baby was. He told them and the couple left.
Before the baby was found, Jumanguin said, he had noticed a couple standing near the bridge with a bag but left when they noticed beggars sleeping in the area.
DSWD
After medication, the baby will be sheltered at the crisis intervention unit of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) 7.
Aileen Lariba of DSWD 7, in an interview, said adopting the baby is a laborious process. So is claiming him if the mother wants him back, she said.
Lariba said the mental, health and financial capacity of the mother needs to be checked.
“We have to investigate if she has the capability to raise the child because in the first place, if she can, why did she leave her baby in the garbage can?” she said.
DSWD 7 posted an announcement about the foundling at the Zapatera barangay hall. (with June Paulette G. Eclipse, SWU MassComm Intern)
