ABC 7: Premature SoCal Baby Born the Size of a Soda Can Shows Miraculous Improvement
ABC 7 recently interviewed neonatologist Seth Langston, MD, about a premature baby who has been in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Cedars-Sinai Guerin Children’s for more than seven months.
When Ellyannah Lopez was born at 20 weeks, she weighed less than a pound and was about the size of a can of soda. The smallest baby ever born at the medical center, she was given little chance of survival, but now she weighs 12 pounds and is thriving.
Langston told ABC 7 news reporter Denise Dador that premature babies born as early as Ellyannah are rare.
“Less than probably 1% of all births are delivered before 26 weeks,” Langston told Dador. “Most challenging for babies this early and this small to deal with are immature lungs, and therefore relying a lot on breathing support.”
Langston said it was important for Ellyannah’s parents to be able to hold their daughter, although for the first nearly two months of her life, she was too fragile.
“We do everything possible to get that mom or get the dad to hold their baby skin to skin because it helps,” Langston told Dador.
Langston said that Ellyannah still needs to check off important milestones, such as breathing on her own.
“She still has a long way to go,” Langston told Dador. “You know, she’s still working on her breathing. She also has to figure out how to eat. Preterm babies like Ellyannah, they’ve been through so much that they just have a lot of ground to catch up on.”
Click here to watch the entire segment on ABC 7.