Baby survives 2 hours on train track after premature birth (NICE news for a change)

[Peachy]

They buried this in the bottom corner of a page in The Times- but it was lovely and I thought worth celebrating! Shows those babies are tough stuff

India: A baby born prematurely fell through a train carriage lavatory onto the track and survived two hours before being rescued. The girls Mother was travelling with relatives in India when she went to the bathroom and unexpectedly gave birth. She fell unconscious and the baby fell. When relatives found the Mother they pulled the emergency brake. Guards launched a frantic search and the child was found. She is now recovering in hospital.

Some of the rankest toilets I've seen have been on British trains .

European trains don't seem to 'flush' though so they can be pretty niffy. Can't comment on Indian train toilets since I've never been to India.

It's not a flushing toilet. It's just an outlet and quite big too and you can actually see the tracks whizzing by below. Not like the UK trains at all- even if they all ultimately deposit on the tracks!

If baby went down, def umbilical cord would get cut/torn.
Can't see baby surviving though... and even mum coming out unscathed! The mind boggles...
Amazing story!!

I almost feel sorrier for the mother, fainting onto the toilet floor. Truly, the loos on Indian trains are foul, with urine-soaked floors and faeces splattered everywhere, floor, walls and even ceiling. I once spent 3 days and 2 nights on a long-distance trip and still shudder at the memory.

trains in India travel at quite slow speeds. the umbilical cord probably stretched and broke away from the placenta. when it occurs like this, baby, mother and placenta are fine. it is actually safer to let that happen than to have the cord cut by unclean instruments which happens a lot in the 3rd world and is a source of neonatal tetanus, iirc.

this is an old case, not the one that happened recently, the baby was a boy in the newer one.