Story By: John Feng, Sub Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Asia Wire Report

These are the images of a newborn dubbed the ‘Palm-sized Baby’ after she was delivered via an emergency C-section while weighing just over 1 lb.

She was given the Palm-sized Baby nickname by doctors and nurses at the Third Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University shortly after she was born on 24th May, when, weighing 540 grammes, she was no bigger than an adult’s palm.

The facility announced its ‘miracle’ case on 9th September, along with the girl’s latest figures showing her now weighing a healthy 3,080 grammes.

Pictures Credit: AsiaWire

The hospital said its experts took the decision to deliver the child early after her mum, Ms Zheng, saw her pregnancy complicated by symptoms such as hypertension, diabetes and placenta praevia.

Doctor Wu Fan, the hospital’s head of neonatology, said of the newborn: “Her organs were underdeveloped and she couldn’t breath on her own.

“It was a very urgent case.”

The newborn, whose skin was so thin and translucent that her partially developed organs and blood vessels were all visible, was put immediately into an incubator.

But she surprised doctors when she started breathing on her own just nine days later.

Her mum, who was not certain whether her daughter would make it, recalled : ”I saw her for the first time 11 days after she was born.

“I was too scared to even take pictures.”

The hospital reported that Ms Zheng and her husband were allowed to take their daughter home on 20th August, with the girl 88 days old and weighing 2,205 grammes.

On 9th September, the facility said she was now a healthy 47.5 centimetres (18 inches) tall and weighed 3,080 grammes.

Doctor Wu said the successful case is the result of extensive studies into premature babies carried out by 26 third-tier hospitals in the province of Guangdong, including his own, between 2008 and 2017.

In 2008, there were fewer than 120 cases of premature births; in 2017 that number was over 600, he added.

Wu noted the survival rate of premature babies also increased from 42.9 percent in 2008 to 64.5 percent nine years later.

The ViralTab page is created by and dedicated to professional, independent freelance journalists. It is a place for us to showcase our work. When our news is sold to our media partners, we will include the link here.