World’s Smallest Baby Sent Home

It took six months but the wait was worth it. The world’s smallest baby to survive is finally home. Six month old Rumaisa Rahman weighed only 8.6 ounces when she was born at Loyola University Medical Center near Chicago in September. Rumaisa and her twin sister Hiba were born 14 weeks early after only 26 weeks in the womb but now both are expected to live normal lives.

The emergency Caesarian section was necessitated when the twins’ mother developed pre-eclampsia: a condition in which a pregnant woman’s blood pressure gets abnormally high. The condition can be dangerous to both mother and child.

Rumaisa has almost doubled her size since birth. She still requires oxygen at all times which is not unusual for premature babies whose lungs have not fully developed at birth. Pre-term babies are usually kept under Intensive Care in order to avoid any risks and complications in the early days of birth.

The Loyola University Medical Centre said Rumaisa Rahman was discharged yesterday weighing 5 pounds, 8 ounces, and almost 43 cm long, much more than her 8.6-ounce and 24.7 cm measurements at the time of her birth on September 19, 2004. The hospital told the news service that she was “the smallest surviving baby in the world known in medical literature.”

The babies were born to an Illinois couple originally from Hyderabad, India. The name of the baby girl means gift from God. The doctors told that the baby was lucky to be safe as the weight was very less at the time of birth. Rumaisa joins her fraternal twin sister Hiba who was also born on the same day in a Caesarean procedure and who weighed 1 pound, 4 ounces at birth.

Doctors said the prognosis was very good for the child and that she should live a normal, healthy life. Loyola University Medical Centre said Rumaisa Rahman was discharged on Tuesday weighing 5 pounds, 8 ounces (2,520 grams), a far cry from her 8.6-ounce (260-gram) weight at birth on September 19, 2004.

The hospital said she is “the smallest surviving baby in the world known in medical literature.” She joins her fraternal twin sister Hiba who was also born on the same day in a Caesarean procedure and who weighed 1 pound, 4 ounces (566 grams) at birth. She was discharged a month ago and now weighs 8 pounds, 8 ounces (3,700 grams). Doctors said her prognosis was very good and expected that she would have normal physical and mental development.