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Indian mothers world?s smallest baby
The baby was just nine inches long and weighed 0.24 kg at the time of birth, reports S Rajagopalan.
A young Indian American couple has now set a world record in an unlikely field: Parenting the world's smallest surviving baby.
Rumaisa was just nine inches long and weighed 0.24 kg (lighter than a soft drink can) when born prematurely — along with a slightly healthy twin sister, Hiba — on September 19.
But the doctors at a suburban Chicago hospital have worked wonders — first delivering the sisters 15 weeks before the due date and nursing them to almost normal health over the past three months.
News of the record-setting event was broken by the doctors of Loyola University Medical Center on Tuesday, when they made the assessment that the twins were by now healthy and nearly ready to leave hospital.
Grateful parents — Mohammed Abdul Rehman, 32, and Mahajabeen Shaik, 23 — fought their emotions under arc lights, remembering only too well that the doctors had initially given Rumaisa only a 50-50 chance of surviving.
Now all that agony is behind them. Hiba, whose name means, "gift from God", could be home by Christmas. And Rumaisa ("white as milk") will in all probability follow her a couple of weeks later.
"It's a blessing. It's a great blessing," cooed Shaik, who had married Rahman in Hyderabad last January. Said Rahman: "I was very nervous when I saw the babies first because they were too tiny...I'm thankful to Allah that everything went fine."
Doctors feel that prognosis for a normal development of the twins is excellent. "It's how long you've been in the oven (womb) that's important, not how small you are," says neonatologist Dr Jonathan Muraskas.
The twins spent about 26 weeks in the womb before they were delivered by Caesarean section. This is said to be three weeks longer than the minimum needed to survive.
Creating the record has not come cheap. Loyola's neonatal intensive care unit costs $5,000 a day and the overall bill for the twins could be in the range of $500,000 (Rs 2.25 crore). But Medicaid is taking care of the bill, a hospital spokesman has been quoted as saying.
Shaik, who became a US citizen after moving from India in 1996, wants the twins to become doctors so that they can serve others. Husband Rahman simply said: "We want them to be good human beings, good citizens."
