Noida: She was barely hours old when she was left alone on the terrace of a house in Greater Noida in the winter of 2024, crying as ants swarmed over her body. By the time rescuers found her, the insects had already eaten into her fingers. Today, the child is healthy, has been adopted by a family, and has just begun crawling around her new home.She is one of 50 abandoned children — 28 of them girls and 22 boys — who were rescued from roadsides, garbage dumps, drains, bushes, vacant plots or other deserted places and placed for adoption by the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) since 2022.Recalling the Dec 2024 rescue, chairperson of the CWC’s Noida unit KC Veeramani said the newborn had been perfectly healthy at birth, but her parents did not want her. “Ants discovered her before people did. By the time we rescued her, parts of her fingers had already been eaten. We rushed her to the NICU. She recovered remarkably well, and today she has found a new home. She is healthy, playful and has even started crawling,” he said.Another infant girl, rescued hours after allegedly being thrown from a height, had both legs completely fractured. “It was difficult to imagine how such a tiny child could survive those injuries,” Veeramani said. She underwent treatment for months. “Today, she too is safe with her adoptive parents and is growing up like any other child.”According to the CWC, parents unwilling to keep their newborns frequently abandon them, leaving them exposed to the elements and to animals. “In the past, we have rescued babies whose body parts had been eaten by rats or ants. There have also been cases where newborns were attacked by stray dogs before they could be found,” Veeramani said.In 2021, officials rescued a newborn boy suffering from gangrene in his left foot after he was abandoned. “He was first admitted to a govt hospital before being shifted to a private facility because of the severity of his condition. We were unsure whether he would survive. Today, he is eight years old, healthy, attending school and growing up with parents who adore him,” Veeramani said.But not every child is as fortunate. Some infants die before they can be rescued, officials said, their abandonment driven by the fear of social shame surrounding their birth.While female foeticide and discrimination against girls remain a concern in parts of north India, officials in Noida say nearly equal numbers of boys and girls are abandoned here. “What we have analysed is that nearly 99% of these cases involve unmarried mothers. They fear social stigma. We counsel them, but sometimes the mother herself is only 13 or 14 years old. In such situations, she is a child herself,” Veeramani said.Officials said the district urgently needs cradle reception centres — safe, anonymous points where newborns can be surrendered. “Because there are no cradles, people quietly leave babies in drains, bushes, terraces or garbage dumps and disappear. Our first response is always to admit the child to the NICU and save the baby’s life. If cradles existed, many more children could be saved,” the CWC chairperson said. Four more children are currently awaiting families, he said.
