Earlier today, my wife showed my this story about a palm-sized baby that is among the world's smallest babies to survive. It's a pretty amazing story...in August, the baby was born by C-Section weighing 9.5 ounces, at an estimated gestational age right on 24 weeks.
From a cynical side, you know that since this baby was born and kept alive (by much hard work) at the Univeristy of Southern California Medical Center, it was done just as much to see if it could be done, and for medical research purposes, as it was for the parents well being. Even if this child had passed away at some point, or goes on to have long term health problems, things will have been learned from this case.
From the parents side...you don't care about any of that. For almost 4 months, their baby girl has lived inside an incubator, with tubes running into and out of her. Now...they are getting to get her dressed, and bring her home in time for Christmas. When our older daughter Bella was born, she had a few problems, and she was airlifted to a larger hospital for Mild Respiratory Distress, which quickly went away, but she then developed a bad case of jaundice, and got to spend a week in the hospital before we could bring her home.
That was a tough week...I can't imagine 4 months of it.
Then, there is the final, jealous side of me. Before we had Bella, we had lost a previous baby. At the time, my wife was estimated to be just past 20 weeks, and the doctors said that based off that gestational age, no medical action would be taken for the baby. She was almost 8% heavier than the baby girl in this story...
Granted, this was 10 years ago...at the time, I had no idea what the lightest baby ever saved was. We didn't take pictures...but in my mind's eye, she didn't look much different than the pictures of the baby in the story.
Heck of a thing to look back 10-years and maybe wonder if you didn't fight hard enough for something...
24 weeks is considered the threshold for viability, meaning a baby born then has a 50/50 chance of survival. The earliest gestational age I can recall a baby surviving being born at is 22 weeks, & that is incredibly unusual. I can only think of a couple of stories, & all in recent years. I am sorry for your loss, but please don't second guess yourself. There was nothing you could have done differently that would have changed the outcome.
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