A woman was reunited with her family over 60km away last Friday along with her newborn son after more than a fortnight of being adrift.

On August 17 around 1am, the Techno City police station was alerted about a vagrant woman writhing in labour pain in front of a milk booth near Tata Memorial Center. When a team with a woman constable visited the spot, they found the woman had already delivered the baby which was still tied to her umbilical cord. She was also bleeding profusely.

When an ambulance could not be arranged, the police flagged down a taxi and took her to Bidhannagar Subdivisional Hospital. “We arranged for the umbilical cord to be snapped but realised that she was suffering from puerperal psychosis (a mental health illness that can affect a woman soon after she has a baby). She could neither give her address nor was she willing to nurse the newborn. Other new mothers in the ward helped out but the milk was not enough. We had to make arrangements for food,” said Partha Pratim Guha, hospital superintendant.

Things got further complicated when the baby developed jaundice two days later. By then, the mother had accepted the baby and refused to part with him. “We needed to give the baby phototherapy. My colleagues suggested referring him to another hospital. But I decided to keep him with us and manage the treatment.”

Once the woman responded to treatment, she could give her address — a refugee colony under Basanti police station in South 24-Parganas. Police got in touch with the family but no one was coming to take her. “The family, we learnt, was too poor to hire a car and come all the way. So I arranged for an ambulance while Techno City police station inspector in charge Partha Sikdar provided an escort to take mother and child home.” The woman, identified as Abeda Sardar, was handed over to her parents.