Inspiring dads: He delivered and fed breast milk to newborn when wife was sick
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Thinesh Edward Balasingam with his wife, Xiao Hui, and children – Krish (left), Adwita (right) and Skanda.
ST PHOTO: LIM YAOHUI
- Thinesh's wife suffered postpartum preeclampsia, detected by her Apple Watch. He managed their home and newborn while she was hospitalised for seven days.
- Their eldest son, Krish, battled severe asthma and allergies as a baby, requiring frequent hospital care. Thinesh and his wife shared all care duties.
- Thinesh calmly managed a 2015 crisis when his son and pregnant wife were hospitalised simultaneously, providing unwavering family support.
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SINGAPORE – When Thinesh Edward Balasingam saw his wife Xiao Hui come out of the bedroom in June 2022, he stopped in his tracks. She looked drowsy and deathly pale.
Her Apple Watch sounded an alarm as her pulse had dropped to about 37 beats a minute, below the normal range of 60 to 100.
Two days earlier, she had been discharged after delivering their son, Skanda, through an emergency C-section after 48 hours of labour.
As Xiao rushed back to KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital (KKH), her place of delivery, in a taxi, Thinesh stayed home with their newborn and two older children, then aged nine and seven.
As it turned out, Xiao had post-partum preeclampsia, a rare condition in which a mother has high blood pressure and excess protein in her urine soon after childbirth, which can cause seizures and serious complications if left untreated.
Thinesh, who was on two weeks’ paternity leave, held the fort while Xiao was hospitalised for about seven days.
In addition to training the helper they had hired, he collected the breast milk that his wife pumped every day and fed it to their newborn.
“I still don’t know how I managed it, but my wife guided me on how to do some things. Her friends and mine also supported me through that tough period,” says Thinesh, 46, an advanced practice nurse from Singapore General Hospital. Xiao, 43, also a nurse, works at a polyclinic.
Thinesh, who was on two weeks’ paternity leave, held the fort while Xiao was hospitalised for about seven days in 2022.
ST PHOTO: LIM YAOHUI
This was not the first time Thinesh has stepped up for his family.
Their eldest child, Krish, suffered from allergies, eczema and asthma as a baby.
He had breathing difficulties from about six months old, and would be hospitalised for three to four days every three months, until he was about three years old. This was later diagnosed as asthma.
Xiao and Thinesh took turns to care for him, until they ran out of annual leave and had to hire a helper.
In June 2015, Krish and Xiao were admitted to KKH at the same time – the toddler for an asthmatic attack and Xiao, then heavily pregnant with second child Adwita, for an insufficient water level in her uterus.
Thinesh ended up shuttling between the hospital’s women’s tower and children’s tower to visit both, and took Krish down to the common area so that Xiao could see and hold her son.
At night, he would sleep in the boy’s room before leaving for work the next morning.
Thinesh, Xiao and their children at home.
ST PHOTO: LIM YAOHUI
“Nursing teaches us to be calm when the situation is very bad. Only then can you manage well,” Thinesh says.
Having outgrown his childhood medical conditions, Krish, now 13, is fast catching up to his father’s height.
He and his sister, Adwita, 11, gamely pose for the camera, while the baby of the family, four-year-old Skanda, flashes a shy smile.
“I’m happy to see them growing up. Life is a cycle, there are ups and downs, and you have to pull through,” he says.
Xiao says of her husband: “Whenever we need it, he’s there for us. He will never complain that he’s tired.”