It is the tiniest male baby in the world. Only the girl, who weighed 252 grams at birth, was smaller than him.
The baby was born in August last year at Keio University Hospital in Tokyo. The case was out of the ordinary from the very beginning: due to the pathology of pregnancy, the fetus stopped growing at the 24th week. The doctors decided that the child had to be saved: the mother had an urgent caesarean section, and the newborn was placed in intensive care. There he spent a long six months. After all, the boy was born weighing 268 grams – this is 13 times less than the norm. This is how much the fetus weighs in the 18-20th week of pregnancy – like a pack of coffee or one and a half medium apples. Viable male babies with such a low weight have not yet appeared in the world.
Despite the critical indicators, the boy lived and was not going to die. It was so tiny that it fit entirely in the palm of your hand. But in the incubator, where he was hooked up to ventilation and nutrition systems, he continued to grow and develop.
Six months later, the boy could already independently feed on breast milk, reports … So, it’s time to check out. The baby left the hospital two months later than the original due date.
The previous boy record holder was born already 10 years ago – in 2009 in Germany. The tiny baby weighed 274 grams, Keio University says, citing the University of Iowa’s smallest newborns register. The smallest girl, she is the smallest child in the world, was born weighing 252 grams, also in Germany, in 2015.
According to the Tiniest Babies Registry website, there have been 23 babies worldwide who were born prematurely and weighed less than 300 grams, of which only four were boys.
The survival rate for children born under 1000 g in Japan is about 90 percent, and among infants under 300 g, it is low, especially among boys.
“I want people to know that children can go home and live a fulfilling life even if they were born small,” says treating physician Takeshi Arimitsu. After how much this baby and his parents endured, we sincerely wish him a big and happy life! Grow big and healthy baby!