Saturday, August 09, 2008

little preemie...

Precious, precious little soul
one so tiny, yet so whole
you are weak but He is strong
tiny baby just hold on...as
prayers ascend to heaven above
blessed miracle of God's great love

I found this amazing picture at this blog and had to leave a wee poem for the wee one. I hope and pray she's done alright. Does anyone know about Kimberly?

The world's tiniest baby - meet the 10oz bundle of defiance

Last updated at 23:35 27 September 2007

When she was born, 15 weeks premature and weighing ten and a half ounces, her father's confidence was about the only thing on Kimberly Mueller's side.

In the few snatched moments he was allowed before his daughter was whisked away by doctors, Andreas Mueller spoke from his heart.

"I whispered to her: 'Kimberly, you'll make it,'" he recalled.

Scroll down for more...

Kimberley Mueller

The size of a mobile phone: Kimberley Mueller weighed just over 10 ounces when she was born in Hanover, Germany - making her the world's smallest surviving baby

Enlarge the image

With a survival chance of less than 1,000 to one, every day she has got through since then is a triumph.

Six months later, Kimberly has finally been allowed to go home to her parents in Hanover.

"Babies as small as this usually have no chance," said Dr Oliver Moeller, a heart specialist who treated her.

"We are incredibly lucky that she lived. Such a case I have never experienced. We had a lot of luck ... a lot."

Kimberly is the smallest baby ever born in Germany and the youngest to survive.

She was just 10.2 inches long and weighed little more than a packet of butter when she arrived in the 25th week of her mother's pregnancy.

Scroll down for more...

Kimberley Mueller and her parents

Now six months, Kimberley has been allowed home for the first time (Above with mother Petra and father Andreas)

Petra Mueller, 38, who remained at her daughter's bedside in intensive care at the University Clinic in Goettingen, was allowed only to stroke her with her finger.

"It was the nicest thing when she would grip my finger in her tiny hands," she recalled.

"She was like a little bear gripping a tree trunk, just hanging on for life as if she was saying 'Don't leave me, mummy'."

Kimberly was placed in an incubator for warmth, given a respirator to help her breathe and fed through a drip. She was also given a cocktail of drugs to boost an immune system that was barely formed.

At three months, she faced a major setback, when doctors feared she could be blind. But laser treatment corrected the problem.

Scroll down for more...

Kimberley Mueller

Kimberley's chances of living were rated at worse than 1,000-1 when she was born 15 weeks prematurely

Enlarge the image

Kimberly's progress was underlined when she arrived home this week weighing five and a half pounds and measuring 17 inches.

During the coming weeks she will continue to be fed artificially and will need to have oxygen as her lungs keep developing.

The world's smallest known surviving baby was Rumaisa Rahman who weighed just 8.6 ounces when she was born in Chicago in 2004.

No comments: