BEIJING (AFP) - – Doctors in southwestern China have removed a
needle from the brain of an 11-year-old girl, believed inserted
after birth in an attempted murder by relatives who had wanted a
boy, a report said Thursday.
Rusted needle shards were detected by doctors in August after
fruitless attempts by the girl's mother over the years to find the
cause of an apparent mental disability, the Sichuan Online news
website reported.
The girl, identified as "Ping Ping", did not begin walking or
talking until she was six, currently has the intelligence level of
a three-year-old, and has suffered for years from unexplained
fevers, it said.
She was said to be recovering from the operation at a hospital
in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province.
The child's mother, Yang Xiaohui, said she suspected that
relatives had tried to kill the child shortly after birth.
Under China's "one child" family planning policy, the
traditional cultural and economic preference for boys remains
strong, especially in the vast and poor countryside.
Reports of aborted female foetuses and infanticide remain
common.
In 2007, doctors in southwestern Yunnan province discovered 26
needles embedded in the body of a 29-year-old woman, state media
said at the time.
They were believed to have been inserted not long after she was
born by grandparents upset she was not a boy, the reports said.
Doctors operated on the woman to remove the needles.
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/afp/20091210/tap-health-china-child-people-8d4ea94.html