Curtis Zy-Keith Means, from Alabama in the US, who was born in July 2020 at 21 weeks and 1 day now holds the Guinness World Record for the most premature baby.
Michelle "Chelly" Butler's pregnancy was progressing well but she was rushed to the hospital for emergency surgery on July 4 last year. She was shifted from her local hospital to the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB).
Chelly insisted on giving her baby a chance. She gave birth to Curtis at a gestational age of 21 weeks 1 day (148 days) at around 1 pm on July 5. Curtis' original due date was November 11. He was born almost 19 weeks premature. He weighed only 420 grams at the time of his birth.
"The medical staff told me that they don’t normally keep babies at that age. It was very stressful," Chelly told Guinness World Records.
"They didn’t know if he was going to survive so they just told me to keep on praying," she said.
Surprisingly, Curtis responded to the treatment and grew stronger as time passed by.
Curtis' incredible birth story accompanies the heartbreaking story of his twin sister, C'Asya Means, who did not respond to the treatment. She passed away a day after her birth.
Babies born this early have vanishingly slim chances of a long-term future.
Dr Brian Sims, professor of Pediatrics at UAB Hospital, said, "The numbers say that babies at this age will not survive. Mum's question to me was: 'Can we give my babies a chance?'"
"We have never been able to bring a baby that young to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit so [Curtis] was literally the first of his kind. We were in uncharted territory," he added.
He continued, "He showed initially that he responded to oxygen, his heart rate went up, his numbers went up. He was giving us a lot of positive feedback that… he wanted to survive."
Curtis was on breathing support and medication for his heart and lungs to keep him alive. Doctors were able to reduce the amount of support over the next few weeks. When he was about three months old, he was taken off the ventilator.
After spending 275 days at the Regional Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (RNICU), Curtis was allowed to go home on April 6 this year.
Curtis qualified as the most premature baby to survive on his first birthday on July 5.
Dr Colm Travers, assistant professor within UAB's Division of Neonatology, suspected that Curtis’ 21-week 1-day gestational age could have set a world record. He helped Chelly with the record application process.
"The first thing that struck me when I saw Curtis was how tiny he was, how fragile his skin was. I was amazed at such a young age that he was alive and that he was responding to the treatments," Travers said, adding that Curtis' chances of survival before his birth were less than 1 per cent.
"I’m very proud of him because where he came from and where he at now, I can tell the difference. Having this record is a blessing that he has accomplished and I’m thankful that [Guinness World Records] accepted him," Chelly said.
Curtis was delivered exactly one month after the previous record holder, Richard Hutchinson from Wisconsin, who was born at a gestational age of 21 weeks 2 days on 5 June 2020.
Before that, the record was held was James Elgin Gill, from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, who was born to Brenda and James Gill at a gestational age of 21 weeks 5 days on 20 May 1987.