When Danielle Hearns gave birth to her son 15 weeks early, she was given a list of things that her son probably would never do: suck from a bottle, feed himself, walk and talk.
Hearns went into labor with her son Cameron when she was 26-weeks pregnant, according to the Irish Mirror.
“I had three kids with no problems, all textbook pregnancies so I didn’t expect anything different,” she told the news outlet. “I had a miscarriage and got pregnant pretty much straight away with Cameron.
“It was actually on the due date of the baby I lost that I started getting labor pains. I was only 26 weeks gone, so I went to the hospital and was examined.”
But Hearns said the hospital sent her home. The next day, she woke up bleeding heavily. Back at the hospital, Hearns soon gave birth to Cameron. He weighed just 2 pounds. A few hours later, Cameron had to be transferred to a different hospital – a heartbreaking ordeal for his mother.
“He was wheeled in to say goodbye,” Hearns said. “It was horrible. I was on a ward with other mums and their babies and mine was in a different hospital.”
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More trials came. Baby Cameron suffered from two brain hemorrhages in the hospital, and doctors feared that he would be severely disabled, his mother told the news outlet. The medical staff thought Cameron probably would never walk or talk, his mother said.
But Cameron defied the doctors’ predictions. The boy is now 6 years old, and though he has mild cerebral palsy, he is doing well.
“He is the boss of our house,” his mother said.
The Hearns family shared their story as part of World Prematurity Day on Tuesday. Cameron’s young life is an example of how very premature babies are surviving and thriving now more than ever before – when they are given the chance.
A U.S. study released earlier this year found widespread discriminatory denial of life-preserving medical treatment to premature infants based on fear that if assisted to live they might have disabilities.
As LifeNews previously reported, the study looked at the survival and outcomes of almost 5,000 babies born before 27 weeks gestation at 24 hospitals from 2006 -2011. It found that 23% of infants are surviving at an astonishing 22 weeks gestation (20 weeks after fertilization) with treatment, but that many hospitals deliberately deny them life-saving medical treatment. In fact, the hospital attitude made the most significant difference in the probability of survival of these very premature babies.
