Newborn Makes History for Her Incredible Birth Weight

Doctors said 'Saybie' only had an hour to live
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted May 29, 2019 8:09 PM CDT
Updated Jun 2, 2019 1:30 PM CDT

When she was born, the baby girl weighed about the same as an apple. A San Diego hospital on Wednesday revealed the birth of the girl and said she is believed to be the world's tiniest surviving micro-preemie, who weighed just 8.6 ounces when she was born in December, the AP reports. The girl was born 23 weeks and three days into her mother's 40-week pregnancy. Doctors told her father after the birth that he would have about an hour with his daughter before she died. "But that hour turned into two hours, which turned into a day, which turned into a week," the mother said in a video released by Sharp Mary Birch Hospital for Women & Newborns. More than five months have passed, and she has gone home as a healthy infant, weighing 5 pounds.

The baby's family gave permission to share the story but wanted to stay anonymous; the nurses, however, called her "Saybie." In a video produced by the hospital, the mother described the birth as the scariest day of her life. She said she was taken to the hospital after not feeling well and was told she had preeclampsia, a serious condition that causes skyrocketing blood pressure, and that the baby needed to be delivered quickly. "I kept telling them she's not going to survive, she's only 23 weeks," the mother said. But she did. The tiny girl slowly gained weight in the neonatal intensive care unit. A pink sign by her crib read "Tiny but Mighty." The hospital said the girl officially weighed 7 grams less than the previous tiniest known baby, who was born in Germany in 2015.

(More newborn stories.)

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