A premature baby girl who was given a 30-percent chance of survival is home from the hospital after she and her mother fought for her survival.
Christian News Network reports Nicol Vittoria was born by emergency cesarean section on May 8 in Rome, Italy. They tiny infant weighed a little over 1 pound after growing for just 23 weeks in her mother’s womb.
Her mother, Jessica, 27, told the news outlet Avvenire that her faith strengthened her through the times of uncertainty with her daughter.
“Strength was given to me by prayer, together with the comforting words of the doctors and nurses,” Jessica told the news outlet.
Before Nicol Vittoria was born, Jessica said her doctors asked her to consider having a “therapeutic” abortion, a term often used if the mother or unborn baby has health problems.
“But I immediately refused. I would have accepted her with any problem,” she said.
On May 8, Jessica suffered a placental abruption and had an emergency cesarean section at Policlinico Umberto I, a hospital in Rome, according to the report.
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Immediately, doctors had to resuscitate Nicol Vittoria, and later, they placed her on a ventilator so that she could breathe, according to the report. Very premature babies’ lungs are underdeveloped.
Over the next several months, the baby girl fought through numerous health battles, including sepsis, heart and lung problems, blood sugar issues and problems with her eyes, the report states.
Initially, doctors gave her a 30-percent chance of survival, but after five months in the hospital, the baby girl grew well enough to go home, the report continues.
Her mother said her daughter has a fighting spirit, and she decided to name her Nicol Vittoria because it means “conqueror.”
More premature babies are surviving and thriving thanks to modern medicine.
The earliest known premature baby to survive outside the womb was born at 21 weeks and four days of pregnancy. In 2017, the journal Pediatrics highlighted the girl’s survival story. The smallest recorded surviving baby weighed less than 9 ounces at birth. Born in California in December 2018, baby Saybie was deemed well enough to go home five months later.
A recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine found that more premature infants are surviving at 22 weeks of pregnancy. This and other research recently prompted the British Association of Medicine to issue new guidelines encouraging medical treatment for babies born at 22 weeks of pregnancy. Previously, the guidelines did not recommend treatment until 24 weeks.
LifeNews Note: File photo.
