The smallest surviving infant to ever be born at Mount Sinai Hospital in Chicago finally went home Wednesday after spending more than four months in the NICU.
Entitan Martins delivered her daughter, Eirianna, when she was just 23 weeks pregnant. Eirianna only weighed in at 13 ounces at the time, ABC News reported.
“I’m just grateful that we’re both here,” Martins told WLS-TV. “It’s been a long haul.”
After 140 days, premature baby to leave Mount Sinai NICU: https://t.co/BqSgW0qAGZ pic.twitter.com/9Yu5VaGsQC
— ABC 7 Chicago (@ABC7Chicago) February 21, 2017
Martins had pre-eclampsia while pregnant – a complication characterized by signs of damage in other organs and high blood pressure. After she was diagnosed, the mother-to-be knew she would deliver early.
At 23 weeks, the delivery was so early that Eirianna almost didn’t survive.
“[The doctor] comes in one day and says, ‘We’re having the baby now. I’m calling your husband, we’re gonna do it,'” Martin said.
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After Eirianna was born via cesarean section, she was so small and fragile that her parents weren’t even allowed to touch her, in case they accidentally injured her.
More than four months later, Eirianna looks like any other healthy newborn and can feed through a bottle.
“Oh, it’s great. I mean, she looks so good. She looks like she never was a little tiny premie,” Beckie Deir, a nurse in the neonatal intensive care unit told WLS.
Martins called her daughter’s survival a “gift”
“It feel like a miracle, like a blessing,” Martins said. “I am very grateful.”
(H/T: WLS-TV)
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