February 21, 2007: Youngest surviving premature baby
 

http://cellar.org/2007/preemiefeet.jpg

Meet Amillia Taylor - or what she looked like in October, when she was born as the world's youngest surviving premature baby. Amillia was born at a Miami hospital after less than 22 weeks of development. Since then she's been incubating and is expected to go home soon.

Is there nothing more amazing than those teeny tiny translucent feet. Hold your own hand out in front of you, and imagine those feet poking through your fingers. She was 10 OUNCES when born (280 grams), and 9.5 inches (24 cm). That's just longer than the length of your hand.

Now she looks like this:

http://cellar.org/2007/amillia.jpg

Amazing. I would be most interested in following her development, to see what lingering effects she had from her premature birth.

Doesn't look real. Amazing.

Oh Kit... that image just might earn you a nomination in the funniest Cellar male category :D

there's been a lot of studies correlating low birth weight babies and criminal behaviour later in life, probably due to the underdeveloped brain causing lack of self restraint, lower intelligence, and other challenges.

best of luck to this tiny one.

Just WOW. I to am an October baby and was very small at birth. But I was full term and aint so small now. Anybody know why she was taken at 22 weeks? I didn't think a baby could survive that early. Will hug my girls extra tonight.

And it's not even a Friday!

I have mixed feelings about this, similar to misgivings about "extraordinary measures" taken at the other end of life.

What are you, nuts? Correlation != Causation. Here's another theory: risky behaviors like smoking and drinking during pregnancy lead to low birthweights, and mothers who smoke and drink during pregnancy are also strongly correlated to criminal activity in their children. Whoda thunk it?!

Smoking? Yes. Smoking crack? Even more so.

Gee, who would have thought a baby raised in a household where a parent smokes crack might grow up to commit crimes?

You beat me to it - that was my thought when I first saw those little feet.

Imagine the poor kid born in a test tube. With so much love for glass as always be in front of mirrors.

The news reports say that the doctors could not prevent premature labor, so I'm guessing once the birth was inevitable, they figured a c-section would be less traumatic and faster to give her the best chance.

She certainly is a fighter, making it home before her due date.

what cf and kit said and....

"probably due to....." :eyebrow:

is this your opinion or has (sic) there been a lot of studies on probable cause too? If so, interested to read these papers. My anecdotal evidence is of preemies being exceptionally bright. But then those I know are mostly the children of academics who sprogged later in life -a factor also correlated with preemies.

What is the source for these images?