Smallest ever Premature Baby is on her way home

Tommy's News and Views 15/01/2018 

When baby Maanushi was born on June 15, weighing just 400 grams, her chances of survival were slim. 

Arriving in the world at just 28 weeks, this premature little girl has beaten the odds to become the smallest surviving baby ever born in Asia.

During a routine pregnancy ultrasound, it was revealed that there was no blood flow to the foetus, leading to little Manushi being delivered via an emergency Cesarean section. 

After being transferred to the NICU, doctors informed Manushi’s parents that there was only a 0.5 per cent chance of their daughter surviving without brain damage. According to her doctor, Dr Janged: “When the baby was born, we were uncertain of what would happen.”

But this tiny premature baby proved her strength - undergoing multiple transfusions of essential nutrition, blood transfusions, and respiratory support until she was stable enough to take milk at seven weeks.

Manushi’s mum, Seeta, 48, said of her miracle baby:

“She’s just fought and fought and fought against all the odds, but she’s made it.”

Happily, Manushi is finally on her way home, once again proving the strength of premature babies everywhere.  Head of our Tommy’s Preterm Surveillance Clinic at Guy’s and St. Thomas’, Professor Andrew Shennan, comments; 

Our knowledge of how to help these tiny babies is improving all the time. We are also increasingly able to prevent preterm delivery, but more reserach is needed to refine many promising recent developments. 

Around 60,000 babies are born prematurely each year in the UK. These babies are vulnerable – they are born before they have grown to cope with the outside world. Tommy’s is saving lives by researching how we can prevent premature births by finding those at risk early on.

Research is vital so that we can understand which women are likely to go into labour early, and help them carry their baby for as long as possible. Tommy’s support cutting-edge work on the causes and prevention of premature birth through our centres in both London and Edinburgh. Clinics at both centres care for mums at risk of preterm birth.

If you would like more information on our research into premature birth see here. 

Get our free app for parents of premature babies. It is the first of its kind in the UK. 'My Premature Baby' is available on all devices.