Smaller than the glass of Diet Coke I just pounded, 11-oz. Dakota Juanita Guido is believed to be the second-smallest baby born...in the US? in captivity? I don't quite know what the hook is here.
She was delivered 14 weeks early by Caesarean because of her mother Sahara's diabetes/high blood pressure complications. 14 weeks is within the growing window of viability, and according to the chirpy local Tv newscast-level of detail in the AP story, she's just fine.
Good luck to the Guidos (accent on the second syllable, please, it flows better), cuz it's a long road out of that NICU.
11 - Ounce Baby Improving at N.Y. Hospital [ap, via nyt]
gently ignoring difference between survival and quality of life, it never ceases to amaze me that the chance of survival goes from 50-60% at 24 weeks to 95% at 26 weeks. that's a lot of important stuff happening in a very short time!
Good luck to the Guidos (accent on the second syllable, please, it flows better), cuz it's a long road out of that NICU.
i'll second that. these sort of stories also inevitably rankle some nicu veterans ( not me, of course :-) ), as their often breathless tone of survival rates and the wonders of technology often simplifies ( probably necessarily ) the reality that the parents will be dealing with the after effects for long, long, long, long after the ap human interest story hits the wires; there's a good reason why there are support resources available for parents of preemie/x-treemie kids who are well into their school years.
Thanks for chiming in, Eric. I was hoping you would put this into a more accurate perspective.
The "how 'bout that, the size of a beanie baby" tone of the story, with no hint at all of any of the challenges ahead, really kind of bugged me, but I worried about coming across like nothing but a critic.
the justaposition of the "chirpy local Tv newscast-level of detail" comment along with the perceptive observation that it was going to be a long road was hard to miss :-)
i can certainly understand the "gee whiz" fascination with kids that are born so early and so small and it's irrational to think a 200 word AP story is going to delve into the the complications of having such a wee one; but i thought it might be of interest to "civilians" that this story won't get distributed in any of the preemie discussion lists that i'm part of ( at least the moderated ones ) because it's such a sensitive issue ( obviously i don't mean that as a veiled criticism of daddy types, since this most excellent of sites is not exactly a specialized resource for prematurity info ).
it's instructive i suppose to note that almost nobody knows ( because it wasn't widely reported ) that the previous 11 ounce wonder died only a few weeks after making the AP round. and if they don't die or suffer debilitating complications, their parents - with their newly acquired post traumatic stress disorder - will do their best to not be overly protective worry warts ( i'm talking about people i know - not me, of course. iiiiiiiii'mmmmmmmm totally normal. ).
There's more (including pictures) on the Buffalo News site. Still nothing mentioned about the baby's later months/years, but still a little more interesting than the AP story.