Doctors remove clump of hair from stomach of five-year-old in northern India

April 19, 2024

by Surya Prakash

• Dungarpur
• Medical College Hospital
• Rajasthan

Doctors worked hard and removed a clump of hair from the stomach of a five-year-old girl after she experienced abdominal swelling and wasn’t able to eat or drink anything in northern India’s Rajasthan.

This incident happened at the Medical College Hospital in Dungarpur on April 17.

Visuals showed the surgery to remove the hair, taking place. The doctors worked hard and carefully removed the massive chunk of hair that had accumulated in the girl’s stomach and intestines as a result of which she wasn’t able to eat. The little child was seen laying on a bed in the hospital premises with her acquaintances before being taken for operation by the doctors. According to a report, the child hails from the Khadgada village and she was rushed for treatment at the hospital after her stomach had swollen on the night of April 16. The child was not able to eat or drink anything and the doctors found out the cause behind this after conducting an examination. However, they didn’t operate the girl right away and waited for her health to improve a bit.

A team of doctors comprising of Dr Mahendra Damor, Dr. Sushma Yadav, Dr Arjun Kharari, Dr Rajat Yadav, Dr Suhani Gadiya, Dr Vnita Goda, Dr Amit Jain, Dr Kush, Dr Kamala along with Pushpa Katara and Javed participated in this surgery. An incision was made in the girl’s belly and the hair, which had spread from her stomach to her intestines, was taken out. The 40-minute surgery turned out to be a success and the all the hair was successfully removed. Dr Yadav later stated that young women suffer from this habit of eating hair, which is also known as ‘Trichophagia’. However, this isn’t very common in small children like in this case. And the child’s desire to eat or drink anything had gone completely as a result of all the hair accumulating inside her stomach.