One Of World’s Smallest Babies Ever Born Scheduled To Go Home By New Year’s

melinda star guido, premature babyPremature babies may have the odds stacked against them, but that doesn’t mean that they still can’t grow up to accomplish great things. Madeline Mann, born prematurely in 1989, weighed only 9.9 ounces at birth. But the 22-year-old is now finishing up her senior year as an honors student studying psychology. The parents of Melinda Star Guido surely hope for such a future for their little girl, who was born weighing only 9 1/2 ounces.

Melinda was born this past August at a mere 24 weeks via emergency c-section. She has since spent her autumn encased in an incubator in Los Angeles. Her 22-year-old mother, Haydee Ibarra, reportedly spent nearly every evening by her side . Haydee had very high blood pressure during her pregnancy and she was also told by doctors that her placenta had failed to develop her baby properly. The fetus had not received a sufficient amount of nutrition, blood, and oxygen during gestation. Haydee had previously suffered a stillbirth and was willing to do absolutely anything to save her daughter.

Dr. Rangasamy Ramanathan tells msnbc that he and his team were certain that the infant wasn’t going to survive. He told Melinda’s parents that babies born this prematurely usually suffer from a variety of developmental problems, including deafness, blindness, and even cerebral palsy.

Her mother was able to hold her only once about a month after she was born — describing her skin as “plastic” because of how thin it appeared. Msnbc reports that Melinda was treated for an eye disorder shortly after she was born, and later went into surgery in November to close an artery that did not seal up after her birth.

Baby Melinda now weighs four pounds and doctors are still uncertain what her possible impairments might be when she is older. She can now breathe on her own but is still learning how to feed with a bottle.

She’s in her last stretch of her hospital stay as her parents unfortunately will not have her home in time for Christmas. But come 2012, Melinda will finally come home.

(photo: msn.com)

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