A six-month-old girl who was found abandoned in a west Delhi park on Sunday when the temperature was around 11 degrees Celsius, died without responding to treatment, reported The Times of India.
Doctors said the girl died within half an hour of reaching the Safdurjung hospital due to hypothermia caused due to long exposure to cold.
It was a passerby who informed the police about the baby lying in the Ashoka Park in Punjabi Bagh park. Police are trying to trace the girl's parents and suspect that she was abandoned and left to die.
The paper reported that local residents had seen a man carrying the baby wrapped in a cloth towards the park, but he disappeared after that. Police are scanning CCTV footage of the area to identify the man.
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What is Hypothermia?.
It is a potentially dangerous drop in body temperature, usually caused by prolonged exposure to cold temperatures. The risk of cold exposure increases as the winter months arrive. Normal body temperature averages 98.6 degrees. With hypothermia, core temperature drops below 95 degrees. In severe hypothermia, core body temperature can drop to 82 degrees or lower.
During exposure to cold temperatures, most heat loss -- up to 90% -- happens through your skin ; the rest, you exhale from your lungs . Heat loss through the skin happens primarily through radiation and speeds up when skin is exposed to wind or moisture.
