After Birth ‘World’s Tiniest Baby’ is Doing Fine and in High Spirit
The baby girl nicknamed as Saybie by hospital staff was born after 23 weeks and three days in her mother’s womb at Sharp Mary Birch Hospital for Women and Newborns in San Diego.
A California hospital recently disclosed the birth of the world’s smallest baby ever to survive and is doing fine and in high spirit. The baby weights 245 grams or 8.6 ounces, which is equal to the size of a large apple, when she was born.
The baby girl nicknamed as Saybie by hospital staff was born after 23 weeks and three days in her mother’s womb at Sharp Mary Birch Hospital for Women and Newborns in San Diego.
After the birth of the baby, doctors told her father that his daughter wouldn’t survive more than an hour, “But that hour turned into two hours which turned into a day, which turned into a week”, the mother of the baby said in a video released by the hospital recently.
Kim Norby, one of the nurses who cared Saybie as she fought to survive says, “She is a miracle, that’s for sure”.
Another nurse Emma Wiest said Saybie was so small at birth that “you could barely see her on the bed”. At the time of her birth, Saybie weighed as much as a child’s juice box or two sticks of butter and could fit in the palm of the hands of her caretakers.
Wiest also adds, “I had heard that we had such a tiny baby and it sounded unbelievable because I mean she is about half of the weight as a normal 23-weeker”.
Doctors say, apart from Saybie’s fighting spirit, her survival as a micro preemie, which means a baby born before 28 weeks gestation could have attributed to the fact that she has so far not suffered any serious complications after her birth.
The hospital said, “Saybie experienced virtually none of the medical challenges typically associated with micro preemies, which can include brain bleeds, and lung and heart issues”.
Saybie now ranks top among the world’s tiniest babies ever to survive according to the Tiniest Babies Registry, which is maintained by the University of Iowa. A baby, born in Germany in the year 2015, but weighed seven grams more than Saybie, held the previous record.
Professor of pediatrics at the University of Iowa, Edward Bell says, “Every life is a miracle, those that defy the odds even more so”.
So far Saybie is doing fine, but she nonetheless will still face enormous challenges as a micro-preemie. The challenge includes possible respiratory, hearing and vision problems.