Saybie with a tiny graduation cap on leaving the hospital (Credit: Sharp HealthCare)
A baby girl, nicknamed “Saybie” by her nurses, has just been released from hospital having been born weighing just 8.6 ounces (245 grams) – about the same as an apple. Five months later and more than eight times her birth weight, she has been sent home as a healthy child. She is thought to be the smallest surviving premature baby.
Born at 23 weeks and three days, classified as a micro premmie, doctors initially told her parents that the child would likely die within an hour.
“But that hour turned into two hours, which turned into a day, which turned into a week,” her mother said in a video released by Sharp Mary Birch Hospital for Women & Newborns.
The Tiniest Baby Registry maintained by the University of Iowa ranks her as the world’s smallest baby ever to survive.
The hospital said Saybie officially weighed 7 grams less than the previous tiniest baby, who was born in Germany in 2015.
In the video produced by the hospital, Saybie’s mother described the birth as the scariest day of her life.
She was suffering from preeclampsia – a serious condition which requires the baby to be delivered quickly to avoid the possibility of the mother’s death.
“I kept telling them she’s not going to survive, she’s only 23 weeks,” she said.
But against all odds, the tiny girl did survive and slowly gained weight in the neonatal intensive care unit.
Nurses put a tiny graduation cap on her when she left the unit.
Children, like Saybie, born extremely prematurely can experience vision and hearing problems, developmental issues and a host of other complications, and sadly, many die within the first year. So far though, Saybie is doing extremely well.
It is lawful in Britain to obtain an abortion up to 24 weeks, but as can be seen in this case many babies are born before this point and survive. In fact, if a child has a disability, it is lawful to have an abortion all the way up to birth.
Recent polling has found strong opposition to the extreme abortion legislation we have in the UK with 70% of women in the UK believe that the current 24-week gestational limit for abortion should be reduced.
