World’s smallest baby goes home after spending 13 months in the hospital

Team Udayavani, Aug 10, 2021, 11:05 AM IST

A baby claimed to be the world’s smallest at birth has been sent home after spending 13 months in hospital.

Kwek Yu Xuan weighed just 212 grams, which is about the weight of an apple, when she was born on June 9 last year at Singapore’s National University Hospital (NUH). The baby was delivered at just 25 weeks, as per reports.

She measured just 24 cm long at the time of her birth.

Kwek Yu Xuan was wheeled into the neonatal intensive care unit, the nurse on duty could not believe her eyes.

The Strait Times quoted Zhang Suhe, the NUH nurse, “I was shocked so I spoke to the professor (in the same department) and asked if he could believe it.”

The baby received 13 months of intensive treatment at the hospital, spending weeks on a ventilator, and now weighs a much healthier 6.3 kg.

The doctors involved in her delivery  said, We expected her to weigh 400, 500 or 600 grams, but she came up to just 212 grams.”

The hospital said in a statement said, “Against the odds, with health complications present at birth, she has inspired people around her with her perseverance and growth, which makes her an extraordinary “Covid-19″ baby – a ray of hope amid the turmoil.”