Meet Baby Saybie: The World’s Smallest Surviving Baby

The world’s smallest baby has just been released from a San Diego hospital after being born five months ago, at only 23 weeks of gestation. 

Weighing in at .5 pounds is baby Saybie, who was born in December 2018. According to a press release by Sharp Health, the half a pound baby was delivered at the Sharp Mary Birch Hospital for Women & Newborns in San Diego. 

Doctors were forced to perform an emergency cesarean section after Saybie’s mother began experiencing severe pregnancy complications, and doctors determined that her baby was not gaining weight. The mother’s life was immediately at risk. 

“It was the scariest day of my life,” Saybie’s mother said in a video released by the hospital, mentioning doctors told her she was suffering from preeclampsia and very low blood pressure. “I just felt very uncomfortable, and I thought, maybe this was part of the pregnancy.” 

Doctors even told Saybie’s father that he had just one hour to hold his baby before she passes. “But, that hour turned into two hours, which turned into a day, which turned into a week,” the mother said. 

When Saybie was born, the hospital’s advanced life support team and neonatologist Dr. Paul Wozniak worked together to stabilize Saybie, and she then was transferred to the neonatal intensive care unit, according to the hospital. For the next fives months, Saybie stayed with team experts who cared for her until she grew stronger. 

“She’s a miracle, that’s for sure,” said NICU nurse Kim Norby.

NICU nurse Emma Wiest said in a video released by the hospital that Saybie weighed about half of what normal fetuses weight at 23 weeks. “So, I went and saw her, and we could barely see her in the bed, she was so tiny,” Wiest said.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fp8cgNCxPvM