The world’s smallest infant is welcomed in California in a real-life miracle.
The world’s smallest surviving baby was recently discharged from a San Diego hospital after being born at just 8.6 ounces.
Named Saybie, the baby entered the world in December 2018 at 23 weeks and three days of gestation, making her a micro-preemie, according to officials at Sharp Mary Birch Hospital. At the time of her release this month, she weighed 5.6 pounds.
Initially, the father was informed by doctors that he would have only about an hour with his daughter before she passed away. However, that hour turned into two hours, then a day, and eventually a week, as the mother revealed in a video released by the hospital.
Saybie was delivered via emergency cesarean section due to severe pregnancy complications that endangered her mother’s life. Normally, a pregnancy lasts 40 weeks. After spending nearly five months in the hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit, Saybie was finally able to go home earlier this month, weighing a healthy five pounds (2.2 kilograms) and wearing a graduation cap. Nurses affectionately referred to her as “tiny but mighty,” as she fought for her survival.
Saybie was so small at birth that she could barely be seen on the bed, weighing as much as a child’s juice box and fitting in the palm of her caretakers’ hands. Emma Wiest, one of the nurses who cared for Saybie, remarked that her size was almost unbelievable, as she weighed half as much as a typical 23-week preemie.
Despite being born before 28 weeks’ gestation, Saybie did not exhibit many of the medical challenges usually associated with babies born prematurely, such as lung and heart issues or brain bleeds. Hospital staff initially did not know whether the infant would survive. However, Saybie was able to go home in mid-May 2019 as a “happy, healthy” 5-pound infant.
Saybie now holds the record for being the world’s tiniest baby to survive, according to the Tiniest Babies Registry maintained by the University of Iowa. The previous record was held by a baby born in Germany in 2015, weighing just seven grams more than Saybie.
Edward Bell, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Iowa overseeing the registry, emphasized that every life is a miracle, with those defying the odds even more so.
Saybie’s distinction as the world’s smallest surviving newborn comes from the Tiniest Babies Registry, maintained by the University of Iowa. She weighed seven grams less than the previous smallest baby born in Germany in 2015, according to reports.
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