World's Smallest Baby Discharged After Surviving 13 Long Months
Kwek Yu Xuan weighed about as much as an apple when she was born last year.
After surviving 13 months in hospital, a baby considered to be the world's smallest at birth has been discharged.
While Kwek Yu Xuan was born on June 9 last year at Singapore's National University Hospital, she weighed only 212 grammes, roughly the same as an apple.
Kwek Yu Xuan spent 13 months in the hospital receiving intense therapy, including weeks on a ventilator, and now carries a much healthy weight of 6.3 kg. She was released from the hospital last month and is considered to be the smallest baby in the world to survive a preterm delivery.
Dr Ng, senior consultant at the department of neonatology at NUH stated that they expected her to be birth with the approximate weight of 400, 500 or 600 grams but she was born with just 212 grams which was not expected by anyone.
According to the reports, she was born at only 25 weeks, four months early. She was only 24 centimetres long at the moment of her delivery.
Even when she was taken to ICU, the nurse present there to take care was not able to believe on her own eyes. The nurse mentioned that in her whole 22 years of serving people, she had not not witnessed such a small newborn baby.
Several challenges were faced by the doctors while treating her as her skin was too delicate, and her body was so tiny that doctors had to seek for the smallest breathing tube, and her caregivers had to trim diapers to fit her and was so little that even the medicine calculations had to be done down to the decimal points.
The authorities of the hospital praised for her determination and growth that have inspired everyone around her, calling her an exceptional Covid-19' baby, a symbol of light in the midst of chaos.
Her parents have been taught how to operate medical equipment so that her care can be continued at home once she is released from the hospital.
Meanwhile,According to the University of Iowa's Tiniest Babies Registry, the previous record for the smallest infant at birth was held by a girl born in the United States in 2018 who weighed 245 grams.