A US boy who weighed less than a pound at birth after his mother went into labor at only 21 weeks and one day of gestation has been certified as the world’s most premature baby to survive.
Curtis Means was delivered in Birmingham, Alabama, last year weighing just 420g (14.8 ounces).
Guinness World Records and UAB Hospital announced Wednesday that Curtis Means, who weighed only 14.8 ounces (420 grams) at birth, set the new record. Born 132 days premature on July 5, 2020 with a twin who didn’t survive, Curtis is now healthy and 16 months old.
A full-term pregnancy is usually 40 weeks, making Curtis nearly 19 weeks premature.
His mother, Michelle Butler, went into labor and rushed to hospital on 4 July 2020. She gave birth to twins, Curtis and C’Asya. Curtis survives but unfortunately the rest breathed the last a day later.
He was taken off a ventilator after three months and discharged this April following 275 days in hospital. Therapists had to help him learn how to breathe and use his mouth to eat.
Curtis – who has three older siblings – still needs supplemental oxygen and a feeding tube, but doctors say he is in good health.
Curtis shaved 24 hours off the previous record, which was held by Wisconsin baby Richard Hutchinson, who was born just a month beforehand at 21 weeks and two days.
Before Richard, the record had remained unbroken for 34 years, having previously been held by a baby boy born in Ottawa, Canada, at 21 weeks and five days
Source:bbc.com
