World’s First Surviving 22 Week Micro Preemie
Welcome to Amelia Taylor.
Some of you may have seen this in the news over the past couple of days …
Amelia is thought to be the world’s first surviving sub-22 week micro preemie. She was delivered on October 24th 2006 by Caeserian section at an astonishing 21 weeks and six days, weighing just 260 grams and only slightly longer than a ball point pen (9.5 inches).
Some of you will know these pictures all too well if you’ve ever had to experience the delights of the NICU rollercoaster. Our twins were extremely premature at 26 weeks and survived, but 22 weeks is phenomenal. From all accounts, she’s a little fighter and has now gone home after 4 months in NICU. Absolutlely amazing, and I am so happy for the parents that their first major hurdle has now come to an end. It will almost definitely be the first of many hurdles having been born this early, but only time will tell.
Those tiny little feet are hard to imagine, but this is what a micro preemie looks like. The redness is due to the fact that they only have one layer of skin (instead of seven), and it’s like tissue paper.
To put it into context, these are the survival rates for extremely premature babies:
Babies born at 25 weeks have a 50% chance of survival
Babies born at 24 weeks have a 39% chance of survival
Babies born at 23 weeks have a 17% chance of survival
Babies born at 22 weeks have only a 2% chance of survival …
This latest story has, however, raised even more controversy over the debates surrounding the upper limit for abortions. And then there are the significant issues that can unfortunately come with extreme prematurity (this blog being the subject of one of them). But I don’t want to get into all of that in this post.
This post is to celebrate something amazing … and I really hope that Amelia goes from strength to strength. To beat survival odds of 2%, she deserves everything that life can give …
Category: General Ramblings
Were coming up on the seventh anniversary of the loss of our child at 22 weeks. It’s amazing to think that only 5 years after we lost out son to a premature birth where they said the odds of survival were nill children are not able to live. This is fantastic. May god bless this child and her parents.