Imogen Stonehouse, a baby who was born on the 6th of September in the city of Swansea, in Wales, in the United Kingdom, with only 22 weeks and 515 grams, turned six months old this week. At birth, doctors gave her a survival rate of less than 10%, with the baby remaining 98 days in intensive care. During this time, she underwent several blood transfusions and was closely monitored for a “heart murmur”. Before going home, she spent another 34 days in the hospital.
“Imogen has been through a lot more than we will ever go through in our lives,” said her mother, Rachel Stonehouse, 28, in statements to the BBC, the week the baby celebrates six months. “It was very scary,” she shares. “The pain was horrible. I went into survival mode for myself and the baby and just tried to breathe through the pain.”
The earlier a baby is born, the greater the risk of death or serious disability. A baby is considered premature when it is born before 37 weeks of gestation. Health complications include respiratory, digestive, heart and brain hemorrhages.
Imogen is not the first successful case of a baby born at 22 weeks. This month, Canadian twins Adiah Laelynn and Adrial Luka Nadarajah, who were born on March 4, 2022, entered the world record books Guinness like the most premature siblings in the world. Doctors thought the babies would not survive.
The Rajendram twins with their parents Kevin and Shakina
Guinness World Records
“We saw the babies almost die before our eyes many times”, explained the mother Shakina Rajendram, in an interview with Guinness World Records, but a year later the Canadian twins are “very well” and exceeding all expectations.
The most premature baby known is Curtis Zy-Keith Meansan American baby who was born at 21 weeks on July 5, 2020. Means weighed only 432 grams; the twin sister, C’Asya Zy-Nell, did not survive. In November 2021, it entered the record book of the Guiness.