[imagesource: University Of Alabama At Birmingham]
The Guinness World Record for the world’s most premature baby to survive was previously held by a baby boy born at 21 weeks and five days in Canada.
Then, 34 years later, the record was broken by a Wisconsin baby who was born in 2020 at 21 weeks and two days.
Now the record has been further broken by an Alabama baby, who has shaved 24 hours off the previous record.
Curtis Means was delivered in Birmingham, Alabama, at 21 weeks and a day last year, weighing just 420 grams.
That’s just a little over how much a regular can of Coke weighs, by the way.
Curtis was nearly 19 weeks premature, as a full-term pregnancy is usually around 40 weeks:
To really add fireworks to the record, mommy Michelle Butler went into labour on July 4 last year, which is the US’s Independence Day, reported the BBC.
At lunchtime the next day, she had in fact given birth to twins, Curtis and C’Asya:
C’Asya died a day later. The hospital said it typically offers parents compassionate care in such situations, allowing them to hold their tiny infants for what little time they may have left together.
But with a less than one per cent chance of survival, Curtis clung on in intensive care. He was taken off a ventilator after three months and discharged this April following 275 days in hospital.
Therapists had to teach him how to breathe and use his mouth to eat, but little Curtis is now thriving as a 16-month-old record-setter.
Dr Brian Sims, the University of Alabama at Birmingham neonatologist who handled the delivery, said that Curtis really beat the odds:
“I’ve been doing this almost 20 years, but I’ve never seen a baby this young be as strong as he was. There was something special about Curtis.”
NPR has more:
“We do not know what all the future will hold for Curtis since there is no one else like him,” Sims said.
“He started writing his own story the day he was born. That story will be read and studied by many and, hopefully, will help improve care of premature infants around the world.”
His mother was understandably excited to take him home to his three older siblings, saying that the moment will always be a treasured memory.
Curtis is healthy, but still needs supplemental oxygen and a feeding tube.
Knowing him, he’ll be up and at it on his own in no time.
