Dozen Newborns Lived Through Mexican Disaster : Body Fat Helped Babies Survive Quake

Pediatricians say it’s not surprising that a dozen newborn babies survived for days under the wreckage of Mexico’s massive earthquake until pulled to safety.

“We tend to underestimate the margin of safety Mother Nature provides in newborns,” said Dr. Karl F. Schulze, a pediatrician at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center. “Humans did evolve from the wild where conditions were not always favorable.”

Doctors say 15% of a healthy newborn’s weight is composed of extra body fat to help the child through its first few days of life, when its mother’s milk is scarce and not very nourishing.

“It’s not unusual for a baby to lose a little weight the first few days of its life anyway,” said Schulze, who said doctors estimate that a baby can live as long as a month without food.

However, babies, like adults, do need water to sustain life, and the most imminent danger the Mexico City babies faced was dehydration.

A baby will automatically drink water if it is nearby, said Schulze, who cited a textbook case of a child abandoned on a dump site in India who survived for weeks by drinking nutrient-rich runoff water.

In times of physical stress, a baby also slows down its metabolic rate, conserving energy and water by lying still and not moving. If something is covering a child’s face or nose, it will wriggle itself free and into clear air, doctors say.

More than adults, babies need a warm environment.

“Babies don’t shiver like adults, so they create body heat by burning sugar,” said Dr. Alan R. Fleischman, director of the division of neonatology at the Montifiore Medical Center. “That’s why we keep babies wrapped and with extra clothing, because they’re sensitive.”

Most of the surviving babies discovered in the city’s medical center complex were sheltered in incubators and wrapped in blankets. The first baby was discovered 55 hours after the catastrophe and the last a few days later.

Hypoglycemia Feared

Some of the babies found in Mexico may develop hypoglycemia because they have depleted their sugar stores and others may suffer some brain damage, said Dr. David A. Clark, professor of medicine at the New York Medical College in Valhalla. However, those found early should bounce back quickly, he said.

“There is no doubt an adult has more advantage in a situation like this than a baby,” he said. “Yet babies are certainly more sturdy than many people think.”