Richard Scott William Hutchinson, a little boy from the United States, celebrated his 1st birthday earlier this month.
His healthy growth over the past year has received a lot of attention from the outside media, and now he has been certified by the Guinness Book of World Records.
It all started last summer.
The boy's mother, Beth, was originally due on October 13, 2020, and the baby was born on October 13, 2020, in the same year.
In June 2020, Beth and her husband, Rick Hutchinson, were originally expecting a baby a few months later.
Unexpectedly, the unexpected happened.
Expectant mother Beth experienced medical complications and ended up giving birth early on June 5 at Children's Hospital of Minnesota.
Baby boy Richard was just born at a gestational age of 21 weeks + 2 days, was born 131 days premature, weighed just 340 grams, and was 26cm long, only about the size of an adult's palm.
Beth and her husband were concerned that the baby had come into the world so early and would grow up safely.
Taking into account the fact that Richard was born super-premature and with a very low birth weight,
The hospital's neonatology team initially determined that his chances of survival were zero, and hoped that parents would be prepared for the worst.
But doctors also reassured the couple that the hospital was doing everything it could to help the baby, and that
as long as the baby made it through the first few weeks of the crisis, the chances of survival would go up dramatically!
After his birth, baby boy Richard was admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit.
As a result of the outbreak, Beth and her husband were unable to stay with the baby overnight in the hospital, and other family and friends were unable to visit.
The couple tried to commute between their home and the hospital every day, hoping to spend as much time with their baby as possible.
Fortunately, the baby himself showed a remarkable will to live.
With all the help and care of the medical staff, the baby survived the most dangerous period of the early days.
Weeks, half a month, a month, the couple counted the days and watched the little baby a little healthy growth.
In December of last year, baby boy Richard was finally released from the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) after spending six months there.
The family, along with three dogs, gathered at the family's home in Wisconsin to spend the baby's first Christmas with them.
Although the baby still has to go back to the hospital for regular checkups and relies on a number of assistive devices every day, getting out of the hospital was no small feat.
Stacy Kern, the doctor who was involved in the rescue, still feels emotional when she thinks about the day her baby was discharged from the hospital:
"Richard was the smallest baby I've ever had the privilege of caring for, and there was a real fear that he wouldn't make it."
"His skin was so thin that you could see every rib and blood vessel in his tiny body."
While the dedication of the medical staff is certainly creditable,
this doctor believes that the persistence of the child's parents was also crucial.
Since preterm birth is a fact of life, it's important for parents to calm down and be patient with their children.
Now, baby Richard is celebrating his first birthday.
Along with his birthday, Richard was officially recognized by Guinness World Records as the world's earliest born baby to survive.
According to mom Beth:
"Richard is a very optimistic baby and always has a smile on his cute little face. Every time I see his bright blue eyes and smile, it fascinates me."
It can be said that little baby Richard was born with his feet on the ground.
We hope that in the coming days,
he will continue to grow up healthy and have more good things happen!
According to foreign media reports, on August 28 this year, British baby Lucas Moore (Lucas Moore) spent his first birthday. This happy and healthy baby can have today is really hard to come by. Lucas was born prematurely, weighing only about 482 grams at birth. Doctors had concluded that Lucas would not survive the birth and even said they would not treat him if he weighed less than 1 pound (about 454 grams).
A year ago, Lucas' mom, Sylvia Moore, was 22 weeks pregnant when her water broke. Doctors warned the Moores at the time that Sylvia would give birth to a stillborn baby, and that even if the baby survived, he would not be able to fight off infections because his organs were too fragile.
In addition, doctors said they would not give medical attention if the baby weighed less than 1 pound at birth.
After a long labor, Sylvia gave birth to Lucas at 23 weeks of pregnancy. Lucas weighed 482 grams at birth, just 28 grams above the hospital's minimum weight line for newborns. In addition, he suffered from a number of medical conditions, including an incipient hemorrhage on the brain, and was put on a ventilator at birth.
The Moores were told their son would be severely disabled. Doctors also advised them to give up on Lucas and turn off the apparatus keeping him alive. But the Moores, who had experienced the pain of losing a child, decided to keep the little life fighting. A month before they became pregnant with Lucas, the Moores lost an unborn quadruplet.
After four months of intensive care in the hospital, little Lucas finally returned home with his parents. Lucas celebrated his first birthday healthy on Aug. 28 of this year, despite being months behind other children his age in development, the Moores said.
Sylvia said the family calls little Lucas their "miracle little boy." "It's very despairing to conceive a baby and be ready to bring him into the world, only to have people tell you he can't live. But Lucas is a real little fighter and we are so proud of him," Sylvia said.
British teenager Hayley James Cannon, 16, was born in Orlando, USA, in 1992, weighing just 709 grams when she was born four months premature. In order to save her fragile life, the medical expenses alone will cost a million dollars, and she is therefore known as the "million dollar baby". Now, 16 years later, Haley is a beautiful young woman.
4 months premature
Weighing just 709 grams
Paula Cannon, 44, and Keith Cannon, 46, are a British couple who were on their honeymoon in Florida in November 1992. -Palmer Hospital in Orlando, where she eventually gave birth to her daughter, Hayley James Cannon, who was born nearly four months premature. Under British law at the time, Paula was even still able to "legally abort" the still-gestational child.
Because she had only been in her mother's womb for 23 weeks, little Helen had no ears and weighed only 709 grams, with only her lungs fully developed. She couldn't even eat because her stomach was not yet fully developed. Doctors at the time almost unanimously agreed that she could only survive for a few hours at most. Paula and Keith stayed at their bedside around the clock for 16 weeks to save this fragile little life, while medical staff worked tirelessly to save the thumb-sized baby.
The cost of the rescue was over a million dollars
The "Million Dollar Baby"
Doctors used state-of-the-art equipment and medication, and the antibiotics alone cost as much as $1,000 a day. Fortunately, Mr. and Mrs. Cannon had purchased an overseas travel insurance policy, which covered all of the medical expenses. Because of the timely and effective rescue, the little one miraculously survived, at this time her medical expenses totaled up to 1.2 million U.S. dollars, and she became known as the "million-dollar baby" at that time.
Worried about bacterial infections, it wasn't until little Haley was 2 months old that her parents hugged her for the first time. In the spring of 1993, after several months in the hospital, little Haley finally flew home to England with her parents, and in the care of her family, growing day by day, and from then on with a healthy child of the same age