World’s Smallest Baby Born At Sharp, Healthy And Going Home

Speaker 1: 00:00 Sabey. The world's tiniest surviving newborn is finally at home with her parents. She was born in December at sharp Mary Birch hospital weighing in at only 8.64 ounces about the weight of an apple. Most extreme premature babies don't live more than a few hours, but say be beat the odds. She left the hospital this month weighing five pounds and doctors say she's doing well. Joining me is Dr. Paul Wazniak, a sharp neonatologist and say, bs primary care physician. Dr Wazniak, welcome to the program. Thank you. Now Seabees parents want to keep the family anonymous, but this is a remarkable story. Who gets the credit for her survival, the medical team or this plucky little baby? Speaker 2: 00:46 Well, I give most of the credit to the plucky little baby, but it was also an extraordinary medical team at sharp Mary Birch. Um, we always think of the doctors and the nurses, but for a baby, everything begins in utero. And that's why Mary Birch is so unique because there's so many high risk babies delivered there. Speaker 1: 01:06 Now, Cindy was born at 23 weeks. A full term pregnancy is 40 weeks. Can you tell us why she was born so early? Speaker 2: 01:13 Uh, yes. Um, she was born early because of a complication of pregnancy than her mom had. Yeah. The official title Fart as Preeclampsia, which is basically a pregnancy induced hypertension or high blood pressure. Um, the cause of the Preeclampsia or high blood pressure during pregnancy, no one knows for sure. They're still searching for cause. And one of the complications of the high blood pressure in the moms is that the baby doesn't grow well. So they knew she wasn't growing well. And then when her blood pressure really shut up, she was admitted by here. Apps attrition's too sharp. Mary Birch, they tried to control the blood pressure with several medications in, could not. So for both the benefit of the mom and the baby, she had to be delivered. Speaker 1: 02:04 Now there's a report that her dad was told to spend some time with his tiny infant right after she was born because she would probably not make it past just a few hours. Is that what happens to most of these extreme premature babies? Speaker 2: 02:18 Yes and no. Um, fortunately I did meet with the parents before this is airing section in cautioned them. They had a baby at 23 weeks and this tiny size do not make it. And if they wanted everything done for the baby, which the response was yes, if she looks good when she came out. And fortunately Sabey came out with a great heart rate and look good. Many babies at 23 weeks don't make it. The majority don't, uh, some die right in the delivery room. Some die after weeks or months in the hospital, which is very unfortunate. What medical problems did she have in her struggle to live? Yeah. The first, a medical problem we always worry about in the delivery room is how well she can breathe and her size. And at 23 weeks now, no baby breathes well. So to assist the baby, we have to put a tube into the trachea or the windpipe in attached the baby to a machine called a ventilator to help them breathe. Speaker 2: 03:22 And this is what we did with a Sabey. We were fortunate that our tiniest tube did fit in her because we had never had a baby, obviously as a small, um, at the hospital. And we have, uh, hundreds a year that are near this because we're such a big delivery service but never hurts size. And then the breathing is the, um, initial problem. And we give a medicine in through the tube which goes into the lungs. And what it does is help keep the airways open and uh, let the baby breathe more easily. And years ago we didn't have this, uh, 20 years ago, so it's really been a break through. So I'm really, a lot of the changes in neonatology, he have improved the baby's survival a lot. But overall you have a good prognosis for saying yes, but very guarded. She has, um, you know, some idea image, so she'll be followed very closely for that. Speaker 2: 04:23 And we'll probably wind up wearing glasses. And if the sharp, uh, Namath high risk infant follow up clinic, she'll be seen every six months for the first couple of years and through most of grade school because we worry about um, vision problems as I mentioned, motor problems, speech delay. And we liked to see the babies and followed them so closely with their pediatrician of course, and intervene if anything is developed because the pediatrician does their exam picks up a lot. But when she comes to the nemesis, high risk clinic, we a do a more developmental exam, much more intensive. What lessons, if any, did sharp Mary Birch learn from this experience? I think we learned a lot. We learned that a baby's this small can do well and can survive. And that's the story the parents wanted to get out to give parents hope. You know, we caution it by the fact that not all babies, the small to um, survive. Speaker 2: 05:26 And she was lucky to be delivered at a place that did have all the facilities to keep her alive in our team. Learned a lot more about feeding this micro preemie and, uh, the equipment we needed to adapt fart, um, from blood pressure cuffs that you mentioned. The things as simple as the scale. We weigh babies in the delivery room on the bed. There's a built in scale. We wait, or several times in the delivery room could never get a weight. So he brought her down to the Nicu and had to use, you know, the old fashioned almost butcher scales, if you know what I mean, like pediatricians used to have in their office. So we learned that our beds are very expensive when we use everywhere. Um, cannot wait. Uh, any buddy less than 300 grams. So, I mean, we learned the very important things and the sort of goofy things. I've been speaking with Dr. Paul Wazniak, a sharp neonatologist and Sadie's primary care physician, Dr Wazniak. Thank you. Oh my pleasure. Thank you.