A premature baby with a 1% chance of life breaks the world record officially!
Reports revealed that the baby born in the twenty-first week of pregnancy in Alabama last year, is the most premature baby in the world alive, according to the Guinness Book of Records.
Curtis Maines, and his twin sister, Asia Maines, were born on July 5, 2020, at University of Alabama Hospital in Birmingham (UAB).
The twins, who were born at just 21 weeks and one day old, had less than a 1 percent chance of surviving, according to the UAB.
"The numbers show that babies who are born small have little or no chances of survival," Dr. Brian Sims, professor of pediatrics at UAB who was an on-call doctor when the twins' mother, Michelle Butler, arrived at the hospital, said in a UAB statement.
Cassia did not respond to treatment and died the day after giving birth, but Curtis' heart rate and oxygen levels began to improve.
"We've never been able to bring a fetus this small to the NICU, so Curtis was literally the first of its kind," Sims told Guinness World Records.
Curtis received constant medical care to help him breathe, regulate his body temperature and nutrition, among other care.
After about three months, doctors were able to take him off the ventilator.
"Curtis defied all scientific odds," Dr. Colm Travers, an assistant professor in the department of neonatology who helped care for Curtis, said in the statement.
He said age and birth weight are key factors to whether or not a baby will survive.
The odds of survival also increase if the baby is female, if the baby is alone or if the mother was given steroids to help lung development before the baby was born, all of which are criteria Curtis did not meet, Travers said.
Curtis weighed just 14.8 ounces (420 grams) when he was born, about one-seventh the weight of an average full-term baby, according to Guinness World Records.
Curtis, getting stronger by the day, was discharged from the hospital after about nine months.
He was given medication and special equipment, such as a feeding tube and bottled oxygen.
After his first birthday, Curtis - or "Body", as his family also calls him - qualified for a Guinness World Record.
Six months after his discharge, Curtis' care team gathered outside the hospital where he was born, and surprised Curtis' mother with a Guinness World Records certificate.
The previous record holder, Richard Hutchinson, was born just one month before Curtis, at 21 weeks and two days pregnant, on June 5, 2020.
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