The smallest baby ever to be born, and survive, in one Indiana hospital’s NICU has finally been discharged after 6 1/2 months. She headed home with her elated parents and has been doing well.
Baby Audrey was born to first-time parents Brooke and Tim Mead of Southwest Michigan on Thanksgiving, 2021. She weighed just 10.9 ounces (310 grams) at birth.
Brooke, who learned that she was pregnant with Audrey in July 2021, told The Epoch Times that she experienced a normal pregnancy until an anatomy scan around 20 weeks flagged some issues.
“Audrey was measuring a few weeks behind, and I had a ’spot' on my placenta that we later found was dead tissue from having preeclampsia,” she explained. “My blood pressure was slightly elevated, and became dangerous around 22 weeks.”
Brooke was admitted to Memorial Hospital in South Bend, Indiana, for preeclampsia which developed into HELLP syndrome, a rare pregnancy complication. A week after her admission, she gave birth emergently via Caesarean section.
Baby Audrey was one of the smallest babies the NICU had ever delivered. She had a chronic lung disease and a rare eye disorder due to her prematurity. Her prognosis was worrying.
