An Iowa baby has moved up the point of viability. Born at just 21 weeks, Nash Keen is now a Guinness World Records titleholder as the most premature baby to survive. His first birthday on July 5 marked a milestone once thought impossible.
Nash was born 133 days earlier than the expected due date and weighed only 10 ounces — about the size of a bar of soap. He spent the next six months in the neonatal intensive care unit at the University of Iowa Health Care Stead Family Children’s Hospital, which is longer than he spent in his mother’s womb. He was allowed to go home in January with parents, Mollie and Randall Keen.
While Nash has experienced some complications and developmental delays common to those born extremely prematurely, his progress has been as good as medical science could hope for, his doctors say. “I never lost hope for Nash,” Mollie said, months later, as she held her giggling son. Click here to read more.