Mom Cuddles Tiny Baby ‘Back To Life’

An Australian mom who was told her baby had passed brought her baby back to life by doing skin to skin with him.

When Jamie and Emily Ogg arrived on March 25 at 27 weeks gestation Doctors gave little Jamie Ogg no chance of survival even though he weighed just over 2 lbs.

His twin sister Emily had survived but Jamie was declared dead by the doctor who delivered him after 20 minutes battling to get him to breathe.

He was handed to his mother Kate so she and her partner David could grieve and say her goodbyes.

The new mom placed him on her chest and after two hours of being spoken to, touched cuddled and held by his mum he began showing signs of life.

Kate spoke about the night to an Australian talk show yesterday saying,

‘He wasn’t moving at all and we just started talking to him. We told him what his name was and that he had a sister.

‘We told him the things we wanted to do with him throughout his life.’

Jamie occasionally gasped for air, which doctors said was a reflex action.

She added: ‘After just five minutes I felt him move as if he were startled, then he started gasping more and more regularly.

‘I thought, “Oh my God, what’s going on?” A short time later he opened his eyes. It was a miracle.
‘I told my mum, who was there, that he was still alive. Then he held out his hand and grabbed my finger.

‘He opened his eyes and moved his head from side to side.’

‘I gave Jamie some breast milk on my finger, he took it and started regular breathing.

‘At that point the doctor came back. He got a stethoscope, listened to Jamie’s chest and just kept shaking his head.

‘He said, “I don’t believe it, I don’t believe it”.’

Kangaroo care, which is what the mom did, is one of the most significant ways to bond with a premature baby.  The warmth of the moms body paired with the soothing sounds of her heartbeat have been know to reduce anxiety, regulate breathing and help babies grow faster.  In this case Kate’s body acted link an incubator to keep the baby warm, which stabilized his heart rate and helped him to breathe.

Now the tiny baby is home from the hospital and doing well. The doctor who looked after the baby refused to be interviewed by the TV show.


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Baby Lucus is winning his fight!

A UK couple is preparing to welcome home their baby son who has defied doctors’ predictions that he would not survive a bowel problem.

Parents Ashley Nye and Holly Johns were told by Doctors at Leicester Royal Infirmary that their new born baby boy Lucus would not survive a bowel defect. Doctors discovered that baby Lucus’s small intensive had failed after his birth and in order for him to survive he would need a transplant. The only problem was that Lucus would have to live at the hospital for the next eighteen months of his life waiting to receive a transplant. His parents were also given the option to take little Lucus home but the Doctors said he would likely not survive. 

Even though the odds were stacked against Lucus, he miraculously pulled through. During his eighteen month stay at the hospital the length of his small intestine almost tripled in size, due to an operation he received in February. The operation was designed to lengthen Lucus’s intestine. Doctors sliced his intestine from end to end creating two separate pieces of similar length and attached them together creating one long piece. Before the surgery Lucus’s small intestine was approximately 20cm in length (a healthy intestine is 200cm long). After receiving the surgery his intestine is now approximately 58cm in length. 

Baby Lucus will undergo another surgery in August to remove a colostomy bag. If all goes well Doctors believe that Lucus will be home and reunited with his parents by the fall.

Lucus’s father is grateful that the right decision was made to leave Lucus in the hospital giving him ever opportunity for a full recovery. 

“We were in the meeting with the surgeons and they talked about how far he has come and that he could have died. It brought a tear to my eye for someone to say that he has done really well. It is such a huge achievement”. 

Lucus is now enjoying solid foods of which his favorite appears to be beef stew and potato puree. He stills needs assistance from a machine which administers vitamin and fat supplements but that has not prevented him from occasionally leaving the hospital to enjoy day trips to the Zoo. – Jeff, Staff Writer

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Baby Boy Bypasses Crawling, Starts Walking at 6 Months

While babies his age were still learning to crawl, 6 month old Xavier already started walking and exploring the world. Born to Mary and David King of Cambridge in July last year, Xavier astonished his parents by circumventing the usual developmental path taken by babies his age and started taking his first steps at the tender age of 6 months.

Says first time mom Mary, ‘It was such a shock. We couldn’t believe it. I never thought for one moment he would be walking at six months. Most children don’t until they are a year.’

Usually babies reach out for objects at 3-4 months, try to pull themselves up and crawl by the age of 6 to 9 months and start walking on their own between 12 and 18 months. However, Xavier born as a healthy 9lb 1oz baby started showing signs of being a fast learner even at the age of 3 months when he was already sitting up.
But his parents were not expecting him to take his first baby steps even before he learned to crawl.

‘It was just amazing when he got up and started putting one leg in front of the other,’ said Mary. ‘The only problem now is that I can’t leave him alone so have had to buy a play pen so he doesn’t get into any mischief.’

There is definitely a need for the Kings to be careful as Xavier’s leg are getting stronger by the day and he can already cover 6 feet on his own.
Mary believes that a bouncing chair she got for Xavier might have helped develop and strengthen the leg muscles as neither Mary nor her husband David were early walkers like him. 

Dr. Martin Ward Platt, a child development expert says, ‘To be quite so precocious with your walking is extremely uncommon.  For his parents, it simply brings forward the moment you need eyes in the back of your head.’ – Atula, Staff Writer


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Amazing 13oz Baby Home and Healthy!

An Ohio baby made his first trip home yesterday after spending 3 months in the hospital following his very early arrival.

Carmine Yannitti made his entrance into the world at 26 weeks gestation weighing just 13.2 ounces. A routine doctor’s appointment on April 9th revealed that his heart rate was dropping and he was not doing well.  It was then determined a Cesarean section was necessary.

On arrival, the tiny baby was only given a 15 percent chance of survival because he was the size of a 20-week-old baby.

“They gave us the gloom-and-doom speech about his chances of making it,” Tony Yannitti, Carmine’s dad said. “We were both pretty upset because the prognosis was not a good one at the time.”

To everyone’s surprise this tiny fighter showed everyone and has been released after just 3 months in the NICU, weighing 5 pounds, 1 ounce.
 
To remember how far he has come Carmine’s mom Mandie has had his tiny footprints tattooed onto her feet.  And even though he comes him still requiring Oxygen his parents expect that he will grow out of that in due time.

Carmine will now more than likely need lots of therapy to help him meet his developmental milestones.  His journey will not be without hard work, but it will definitely be worth it.  After all, look at how far he has come already!  He is the smallest baby to survive at Dayton Children’s Medical Center, which is amazing all in itself.

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Newborn Kept ‘Frozen’ for 4 Days To Fix Fatal Heart Condition

A 4-month-old baby who suffered complications after undergoing an intricate heart operation was “frozen” for four days to improve his heart problems.

When Finley Burton was 10 weeks old his parents took him to the doctor because he was not putting on weight and had breathing difficulties.

Tests revealed that he had a large hole at the top of his heart, a small one at the bottom and a narrowing of his heart’s main artery.

When complications during the surgery caused his heart to go into junctional ectopic tachycardia, doctors then made the decision to lower his body temperature by 3.5 degrees from 37C to to 33.4C to stabilize the organ.

The process involved placing his body in a “cool bag” to reduce his metabolism, which slowed his heart rate.

He was also hooked up to an external pacemaker and given intravenous drugs that paralyzed him to make sure he did not disturb the equipment by shivering.

“Nothing prepares you for seeing your baby in hospital like that. I just cried,” Finley’s mom, Donna Link-Emery said. “Then he was gradually weaned out of his paralysis and his temperature was brought back to normal and his heart started to beat properly again.”

Amazingly he only needed to spend an additional 12 days in the hospital after his body temperature was brought back to normal and now continues to recover well at home.

Dr. Asif Hasan, who operated, said:

“Finley had a big operation for such a small baby, We’re pleased with how well he did.”

Someone is clearly a little fighter!

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Baby Survives After Train Hits Stroller

An Australian baby has escaped with just a few cuts and bruises today after a train struck his stroller, which rolled onto the tracks when the child’s grandmother looked away for just a moment.

Security camera footage showed the stroller rolling over the edge of the platform just as the train pulled into the station. The stroller was pushed a short distance down the tracks before the train came to a halt in front of horrified witnesses.

“It’s absolutely amazing that this child isn’t more injured than what he is, given the circumstances of the accident,” paramedic Kate Jessop told reporters. “It would appear, amazingly, that it’s nothing more than a couple of grazes and a big fright. … I was assuming the worst as well and had those awful pictures in my head of a child underneath the train.”

The baby and his 3-year-old brother were being cared for by their grandmother. She told officials she saw the stroller on the platform, looked away for a moment, and turned back to see it on the track, the paramedic said.

Miraculouly, the boy, who is in stable condition at Royal Children’s Hospital, only suffered some minor facial bruising and grazes to his head. From the Video footage below you can see the 15-month-old boy was riding in a Mountain Buggy Duo! WOW!

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Preemie Holds on to Mom’s Finger to Assure She’s Fine

Kylee John knew that she had given birth to a brave heart in spite of her fragile appearance when her daughter Erin clutched her finger tightly for as long as one minute days after she was born prematurely.

Kylee says,

“It was a remarkable moment. My husband Steven captured it on camera. It was as though she was holding on to me. Telling me she wasn’t going to let go.”

Kylee became pregnant with twins in July 2008 but during her routine 23 weeks check up it was discovered that she was suffering from Pre-eclampsia. The mom-to-be was taken to the hospital where her condition worsened to a condition where the body’s organ start shutting down called Hellp Syndrome. Doctors immediately sped into action to save the mother’s life and at 24 weeks Kylee gave birth to identical twins Erin weighing 1 pound and Sian weighing just 10 ounces.

“It was touch and go whether I would survive,” says Kylee. “So even though I was 24 weeks pregnant, doctors decided they had to deliver the twins to save me.”

The births however were not marked by the usual smiles and joyous moments as doctors gave little chances of survival for both the twins.

“When I had recovered, I was wheeled down to see the twins and I just couldn’t believe how tiny they were. Their skin was completely translucent – they just didn’t look like babies at all. The doctors told us right from the start that Sian wasn’t going to survive as she was just too tiny. They had to resuscitate her straight away, but they didn’t know if Erin would survive either as she only weighed just 1Ib.’

But that is when Erin showed her first signs of being a fighter when she held on to her mother’s finger.

As two months passed, while Erin raised hopes of survival, Sian grew weaker and weaker.

‘It was heartbreaking. The doctors told us that it was only machines keeping her alive and there was nothing more they could do for her. Sian slipped away whilst we were by her side.’ says Kylee.

Doctors meanwhile did everything they could to make Erin stronger and healthier. She had a laser eye surgery to stop her from going blind and after 11 months in the NUCI, she finally string enough to go home.

‘She is still tiny for her age.” says her mom, “She wears clothes for six to nine month old babies and she has to have physiotherapy to help her muscles develop but she is now sitting up, and starting to stand. She has a good appetite and she is catching up now with other babies of her age. We are so proud of her.”

“She is one of the smallest babies ever to survive in Britain and she had a massive battle for survival. But she has come through it all – she may be tiny but she is a real fighter.”

– Atula, Staff Writer

Many times these tiny babies arrive with minute chances of survival but somehow work to show us that they are more than a statistic. Never underestimate a preemie. – Lisa, Editor

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Amazing Newborn Survives Rare Heart Surgery at One-Day-Old

Named Riley, for it’s Gaelic meaning for brave, a UK newborn is living up to that name and more. At just 24 hours old, the tiny fighter survived a rare heart surgery that will hopefully buy him time until he is old enough for a transplant.

Riley has hypoplastic left heart syndrome, a condition that affects only one in 5000 births. When his mom Kerrie was 20 weeks pregnant, a routine ultrasound picked up the baby’s heart problem. At that time Karrie and husband Ryan were given three options – to terminate the pregnancy, give comfort care and let the baby die or opt for the most risky surgical route which they chose.

“I don’t think I would ever have forgiven myself if we hadn’t given him a chance at life.” Said Kerrie, “ We wanted this little boy so much. It was shortly after that scan that we decided to name him and fight every step of the way for him.”

Kerrie was then referred to Evelina Children’s Hospital in London, one of the world’s renowned centers for caring for children with cardiac problems, where she gave birth naturally to Riley 2 weeks early and weighing 6lb 3oz.

Kerrie said:

“Riley cried when he was born. I fell in love with him straight away.That was the only time I cried in front of him. Since then, I’ve tried to be as positive as possible as I thought he’d sense if I was upset. I’ve tried to stay happy and enjoy my gorgeous wee boy. I only had a two-minute cuddle with him before they took him away.”

Because Riley was born with only half a heart doctors needed to perform on him right away.

Known as the Norwood procedure, surgeons worked to ensure that Riley’s single chambered heart could support the body by supplying blood flow to the lungs by using a plastic tube. Kerrie said:

“I didn’t really think of Riley not making it. I wanted to focus on him and make sure he knew I was there. It was a shock though. Before the operation we were able to get close to Riley but after the surgery a tube was breathing for him and we couldn’t cuddle him any more.”

During the days after his surgery Riley suffered a collapsed lung, but eventually he was declared well enough to travel home in Scotland.

While in hospital nurses kept daily notes of his recovery and as Kerrie celebrated her first mother’s day at home with her son she received a picture using paint prints from Riley’s feet.

“I got a World’s Best Mum rosette. Now we’re just enjoying every moment we can with him. Occasionally he will look a little blue but he’s getting bigger and stronger. We get more smiles out of him every day. I’m loving being a mum and doing ordinary things like going out with him in the pram. Everyone has been so kind.”

It hasn’t been easy for the family as all the procedures are expensive including the travel expenses they have to incur going to London.

But inspite of all the troubles and challenges, the couple know that their child is priceless and will do whatever it takes to give him a life. Riley will need three more operations at specific intervals till school going age to buy him time for the heart transplant and even after the surgeries doctors say he has 40% chance of survival without the transplant.

Kerrie is hopeful for the future.

“I hope Riley gets the chance to live all his dreams. He’s done so well so far. He’s definitely a fighter at heart.”

We agree!

-Atula, Staff Writer

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25 Week Baby Survives Unexpected Toilet Bowl Birth

When Tamara Richardson’s water broke at 21 weeks doctors told her that if the baby arrived before 23 weeks he would have little chance of survival.

So for 16 days she sat patiently on bedrest before being transferred to a women’s hospital. Then in preparation for the baby’s possible early arrival, she was moved again to a hospital with better facilities a mere three hours before her son made his unexpected arrival.

During a trip to the toilet, without and warning or contractions, baby Kian arrived, landing it the bowl.

“I didn’t even know he had come out. I panicked and pressed the emergency button,” she said.

When nurses arrived, they scooped him out of the toilet and cut the cord.

They then gave him adrenalin to get his heart going and resuscitated him – it took a harrowing seven minutes, but he came through.

Arriving at just 33cm long (the length of a ruler) and 695 grams, the little baby definitely has a long way to go.

But now 3 weeks old, has already survived a lung infection and needs blood transfusions every few days.

Brain scans show there is no damage and he is perfectly formed.

Doctors figure that he still faces another four months in the humidity crib until his weight reaches 1.8kg.

“We are not really safe until he hits 32 weeks,” Mr Richardson said.

When he does come home, the family, including big sister Ayla, 2, is planning a big party and so they should. Not only has he survived arriving 15 weeks early, but he didn’t get the quick intervention that most preemies get on arrival.

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19 Kids and Counting: Michelle Duggar Cradles 2-Pound Baby Josie

On tonight’s episode of 19 Kids and Counting Michelle Duggar is finally able to hold tiny Josie, who weighed 1 lb., 6 oz. when she was born at just 25 weeks.

“Momma’s here. She looks so big to me,” Michelle, 43, coos to Josie, who is 47 days old and still hospitalized in the clip.

A nurse from the intensive care unit explains that Josie now weighs 2 lbs., 3 1/2 oz.

“She eats breast milk that mom has pumped and we have, and she gets it continuously at six milliliters an hour, which is about a teaspoon an hour,” the nurse says.

Before getting to hold her Michelle attempts to put a purple bow on her head, until she realizes that the tiny baby’s head IV is in the way.

Josie has “been very energetic,” Michelle says. “She’s going to have to be to keep up with everybody at home.”

“You look so beautiful, even without the bow,” Michelle says. “You’re just beautiful.”

Other Amazing Premature Babies:

• Tiny Baby Survives After Arriving Weighing Just 9 Ounces
  
• Ohio Baby Born At 22 Weeks Thriving At Toledo Hospital
  
• Jim and Michelle Duggar Show Off Baby Josie!

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