Little Amillia gets to go home :)

On Monday, I blogged about little Amillia Taylor, who was born back in October at 21 weeks 6 days – and survived. She’s been in the hospital since her birth, and yesterday Amillia got to go home for the first time with her mom and dad:

MIAMI – Parents of one of the world’s smallest premature babies got to take her home Wednesday for the first time since she was delivered last fall.

Amillia Sonja Taylor has known only an incubator for a bed at Baptist Children’s Hospital since she was delivered in October after less than 22 weeks in the womb.

“The baby is healthy and thriving and left Baptist Children’s Hospital today after four months in our neonatal intensive care unit,” hospital spokeswoman Liz Latta said.

Amillia, who was just 9 1/2 inches at birth and weighed less than 10 ounces, will still require oxygen at home and a developmental specialist will follow up with her and her parents to track her neurological development.

The infant now weighs about 4 1/2 pounds and is just over 15 1/2 inches long.

[...]

Doctors had hoped to release Amillia from the hospital Tuesday but kept her an extra day to monitor a low white blood cell count that could have indicated a vulnerability to infection.

Full-term births come after 37 to 40 weeks, and few babies born before 22 weeks survive.

Amillia suffered respiratory and digestive problems, as well as a mild brain hemorrhage, but doctors believe those problems will not have major long-term effects.

Amillia in October:

Ten ounces of determination: Amillia was little longer than this pen.
(Photo credit)

Amillia now:

This handout photo courtesy of Baptist Health South Florida shows Sonja Taylor holding her daughter Amillia on 20 February 2007 at Baptist Children’s Hospital in Miami, Florida. Amillia, the world’s most premature living baby, born at 22 weeks, went home after spending four months at a Miami hospital.
(AFP/BCH-HO/File)

Please pray for the Taylor family, especially Amillia, in hopes that she will live a long, healthy, happy life. You are truly a beautiful miracle, little Amillia!