| The parents of one of the world's smallest premature babies got to take her home Wednesday for the first time since she was delivered in October.
Amillia Sonja Taylor has had an incubator for a bed at Baptist Children's Hospital since she was delivered after less than 22 weeks in the womb.
"The baby is healthy and thriving and left Baptist Children's Hospital today after four months in our neonatal intensive care unit," hospital spokeswoman Liz Latta said.
Amillia, who was just 9 1/2 inches at birth and weighed less than 10 ounces, will still require oxygen at home, and a developmental specialist will follow up with her and her parents to track her neurological development.
The infant now weighs about 4 1/2 pounds and is just over 15 1/2 inches long.
Her parents, Eddie and Sonja Taylor of Homestead, declined to speak with reporters Wednesday.
Doctors had hoped to release Amillia from the hospital Tuesday but kept her an extra day to monitor a low white blood cell count that could have indicated a vulnerability to infection.
Full-term births come after 37 to 40 weeks, and few babies born before 22 weeks survive.
Amillia suffered respiratory and digestive problems, as well as a mild brain hemorrhage, but doctors believe those problems will not have major long-term effects.
She was conceived in vitro and was delivered by Caesarean section after an infection caused her mother to go into premature labor, doctors said. |
World's smallest baby, who was about the size of a pen when born, is doing fine and gets to go home. Doctors say the baby has more chances of survival than Britney Spears' kids.
