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A baby born at 21 weeks gestation in Alabama last year is the most untimely babe in the world to survive , concord to Guinness World Records .
Curtis Means and his twin sister , C’Asya Means , were acquit on July 5 , 2020 , at The University of Alabama at Birmingham ( UAB ) infirmary . The twins , who were only 21 calendar week and 1 day gestational long time at birth , had a less than 1 % luck of endurance , harmonize to UAB . They were about 19 hebdomad , or 132 twenty-four hour period , untimely , according to Guinness World Records .
Curtis and his mom Michelle Butler.
" Numbers show that babies born so youthful have little to no probability of survival , " Dr. Brian Sims , a professor of pediatric medicine at the UAB who was the on - call physician when the Gemini ' mother , Michelle Butler , go far at the infirmary , say in the UAB affirmation . C’Asya did not reply to treatment and died the mean solar day after birthing , but Curtis ' mettle charge per unit and oxygen horizontal surface started to amend .
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" We have never been able-bodied to institute a baby that untried to the neonatal intensive care building block , so [ Curtis ] was literally the first of his kind , " Sims tell Guinness World Records . We were in chartless territory . "
Curtis Means is the most premature baby in the world to survive.
Curtis was given incessant medical aid to help him breathe , regulate his body temperature and take in victuals , among other care . After about three month , the doctors were capable to take him off a breathing equipment .
" Curtis defied all scientific odds , " Dr. Colm Travers , an assistant professor in theDivision of Neonatologywho helped care for Curtis , said in the statement . geezerhood and birth weight are two fundamental predictors of whether a child will survive , he suppose . The betting odds of survival also increase if a babe is female , if the baby is a singleton or if the mother was given steroid hormone to serve with lung development prior to the baby ’s nascence — all criterion Curtis did n’t meet , Travers said .
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Curtis weighed only 14.8 ounce ( 420 grams ) when he was hold , about one - one-seventh the weight of an modal full - terminus baby , according to Guinness World Records .
Curtis , who develop stronger by the sidereal day , was discharged from the infirmary about nine months later . He was given medicine and particular equipment , such as a eating tube and bottled atomic number 8 . After his first birthday , Curtis — or " Poodie , " as his family also calls him — qualified for the Guinness World Record .
Six months after he was discharged , Curtis ' tending squad gathered outside the hospital where he was born and surprise Curtis ' female parent with a Guinness World Record certificate . The previous record holder , Richard Hutchinson , was born just a month before Curtis , at 21 weeks and 2 days pregnancy , on June 5 , 2020 . Prior to that , the record persist unbroken for 34 long time .
Originally published on Live Science .
