Recently I got to hold the world’s smallest baby. Alright, alright. Maybe he wasn’t the smallest baby ever born but he was, however, the smallest baby that I have ever held. He was only 2 lbs, 14 ozs. And, as Matt clearly pointed out, that is the weight of our tub of butter.
Our neighbors had their twin baby boys at 32 weeks gestation. Noah, the larger yet younger one, was a little more than 4 pounds and his “big” brother, Riley, was less than 3 pounds. Their combined total weight was still less than my smallest baby.
The mom had an emergency cesarean delivery here at our local hospital. Then, immediately after they were removed from her womb, the babies were ambulanced to a NICU in Indy. The two days that my friend had to stay in the hospital while her way-too-small-newborns were in a different city had to be the longest, most terrifying days of her life.
So after thing settled down a bit, I went to visit. And, that is when I got to hold little Riley. I wasn’t terrified as much as I was curious. As I examined his extremities, scrutinized over his scrotum, and observed almost everything else, I was in awe with this tiny and precious life in my hands. As I sat there only two thoughts went through my mind. Neither I thought I should share with his new mom.
First I thought about this particular baby’s mortality rate. I can only assume that less than 50 years ago (maybe even more recently) this little creature would not have been given the chance at life. I don’t know if the midwives or mothers would have simply deemed him unable to thrive. Or if he would have just not had the chance to try due to lack of technology and medicine. Either way, I for one am thrilled that he survived his premature birth.
The second thought wasn’t about what could have happened in the past as much as I consumed myself with thoughts of the present. In the late 1990’s and early 2000’s babies even bigger than Noah and Riley could have been aborted. Actually babies up until they are delivered could be aborted. It is called “partial-birth abortion”. If you haven’t heard of this procedure you need to educate yourself (because I won’t go into details here.) There were over 2000 partial-birth abortions performed in the year 2000 alone. Those are reported cases.
Babies killed. Just for being babies. Not preemies like my new neighbors. No, they were simply killed just for being babies.
Thankfully, eight very long years, our congress finally passed a ban in 2003 outlawing this procedure to be done. Eight years. Thousands of humans. Scary. Bothersome.
No I didn’t share any of this with my wonderful friend and mom to a new set of twins. I just reminded her that her littlest one was about the size of our tub of butter.
Just a side note: Just in case you care. “Premature” does not mean born before his due date. It is all about how much the baby weighs at birth. Technically, (Wikipedia agin) “the definition of prematurity is 2500 grams (about 5 1/2 pounds) or less at birth.” Think “weight, not date” I only know this (and am reminded of this whenever the topic arises) because Matt is a twin. He was premature and his brother was not….and Matt is older. Go figure.
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