Doctors do not often encounter cases where a baby is born weighing less than 500 grams. Babies have reasons for this, but their bodies at the time of birth are not yet ready to function independently.
Such babies require constant medical monitoring for a long time and here a special record was broken by Japanese doctors – a newborn weighing 268 grams and only 22 centimeters tall was born.
Intrauterine conditions in a medical incubator
Riusuke was born in a Tokyo maternity hospital, and his size was considered critical by doctors right away. They did not guarantee the mother that her baby, born at 24 weeks, would survive.
After the delivery, which was done by cesarean section, the boy was immediately placed in a special cave where the conditions for the baby were especially similar to those in utero. He was kept there until his weight stabilized.
At first, he was fed with a probe, but when that became irrelevant, the mother regularly pumped the breast milk and passed it on to her baby.
A mother’s love and strength were the most important thing for the baby
It was very difficult for a loving mother to try not to be nervous about losing breast milk.
She recounted how at first she cried constantly thinking about her newborn son, but then she realized that only breast milk would give her baby the special, necessary benefit and tried very hard to keep it.
Also, according to hospital rules, she was forbidden any visits to her son – it was easy for such a fragile baby to get dirt and develop an infection that could end up being fatal and sterile conditions were one of her chances of survival.