9oz Miracle: World's Smallest Ever Baby Boy

3:23pm UK, Friday March 05, 2010

Damien Pearse,

Sky News Online

 

Meet the world's smallest ever surviving baby boy - weighing just nine ounces.

The tiny child - smaller than a can of coke - was born after just 25 weeks.

He was so little at birth that a tape measure laid next to his body was wider than his limbs.

Doctors in Germany were convinced he would not survive but refused to give up hope.

Now - eight months after the birth - medics have finally released a picture of the mite, confident he is strong enough to make it through.

The child weighed just 275g and is the smallest baby boy ever to survive. There have been three girls who have been lighter.

Doctors are confident the boy - now eight-months-old - will pull through

The most premature baby to survive is believed to have been born after 21 weeks, a girl born in Miami in America in 2004.

Experts on medical ethics advise doctors not to resuscitate babies born before 23 weeks in the womb.

More than 80,000 babies are born prematurely in Britain every year and half need to be treated in intensive care.

Doctors expect babies weighing less than 12oz not to survive.

The baby in Germany was delivered by Caeserean section at the University of Medicine at Goettingen in June 2009.

A spokesman for the university told Sky News Online that doctors were "extremely proud" of the boy and the parents were overjoyed.

"This was an incredible fight for life," the spokesman said.

 LINK TO VIDEO AND PHOTOS:

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/video/Is-This-The-Worlds-Most-Premature-Baby-Tom-Thumb-Germany/Video/201003115567914?lpos=video_Article_Body_Copy_Region_0&lid=VIDEO_15567914_Is_This_The_Worlds_Most_Premature_Baby_Tom_Thumb_Germany