A COLLECTION OF CELLS

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Even before the baby girl was born, doctors knew she was going to be small. She was being delivered by emergency Caesarean section after spending only 23 weeks and three days in gestation because her mother was suffering from preeclampsia, a life-threatening condition that can slow a baby’s growth in the womb.

But as Paul Wozniak, a neonatologist at Sharp Mary Birch Hospital for Women & Newborns in San Diego, stood in the delivery room last December looking down at the infant he had just been handed, he was shocked.

 

“I thought, ‘Oh, my God, I can’t believe how small she is,’ ” Wozniak told The Washington Post. The doctors had anticipated the baby would be around 400 grams, or slightly less than 1 pound, but she was even tinier. “We weren’t expecting anyone this small,” he said.

 

Despite her small size and the host of health complications that can potentially be deadly for a “micro-preemie,” or a premature infant born before 28 weeks, Saybie lived. After nearly five months in the neonatal intensive care unit, Saybie’s parents, who wished to remain anonymous, took their “healthy 5-pound infant” home earlier this month, the hospital said.