A baby boy born at just 28 weeks is celebrating Christmas at home after a 10-week rollercoaster in the neonatal unit.
When baby Sebastian Davidson from Inverurie, Scotland, was born in April, he weighed only 1.2kg.
Everything seemed to be progressing as it should until Sebastian’s mum, Stephanie, began to experience high blood pressure when she was 24 weeks pregnant. Even after a few weeks, it had not gone down and by the time she was 28 weeks pregnant, she had started to develop signs of preeclampsia and was told that she would have to give birth to her baby straight away.
Her little boy was born via an emergency caesarean section and taken immediately to the Neonatal Unit in Aberdeen, where he underwent a 10-week neonatal “rollercoaster”.
Stephanie admitted that it was hard receiving messages congratulating her on Sebastian’s birth. She said “I don’t want it because I don’t know how this is going to end, was basically my feeling”.
From bumpy start to festive finish
Amazingly, tiny Sebastian came home after 10 weeks in the Neonatal Unit and mum reports that “things are good after a very, very bumpy start”.
Stephanie and her husband Stephen were able to celebrate Sebastian’s first Christmas at home. Mum confessed that she was planning to “spoil him rotten” as they joyfully awaited being home together for the festive season.
Smiley little Sebastian was born at just 28 weeks gestation. Medical advances mean that babies who are even more premature when they are born are surviving.
A 2008 study looking at survival rates for a neonatal intensive care unit in London found that neonatal survival rates at 22 and 23 weeks gestation had improved over time. In 1981-85, no babies who were born at these gestational ages survived to discharge. However, by 1986-90, 19% did and this increased to 54% in the period 1996-2000.
In the decade to 2019 alone, the survival rate for extremely premature babies born at 23 weeks doubled, prompting new guidance from the British Association of Perinatal Medicine (BAPM) that enables doctors to intervene to save premature babies from 22 weeks gestation. The previous clinical guidance, drafted in 2008, set the standard that babies who were born before 23 weeks gestation should not be resuscitated.
Research published in November 2023 by academics at the University of Leicester and Imperial College London found a total of 261 babies born alive at 22 and 23 weeks, before the abortion limit, who survived to discharge from hospital in 2020 and 2021.
Spokesperson for Right To Life UK, Catherine Robinson, said “Baby Sebastian’s first Christmas at home must have been the perfect Christmas present for his parents. It’s heartwarming to hear how such tiny babies are surviving at greater rates and are even going home without long-term complications despite their premature birth”.
