At 23 weeks and one day, baby Latifa was born weighing no more than a large apple, she was so small she could ‘fit in the palm of one’s hands’. Emiratis Ahmed Huseein Salem and Fatema Omar her parents have lost their first child to premature birth. They were told Latifa had “only a few hours to live”. But this miracle baby survived. Doctors at NMC Royal Hospital in Abu Dhabi said that, at 250g, Latifa could be one of the world’s tiniest babies who survived premature birth. After battling a flurry of life-threatening conditions during a 177-day stay at the hospital, she was discharged weighing a healthy 3.825kg. She was born in to an army of doctors: a pediatric cardiologist, pediatric ophthalmologist, pediatric neurologist, pediatric hematologist, ENT, and a physiotherapist.
Dr Ritu Nambiar, gynaecology specialist, who delivered the baby via a spontaneous pre-term normal delivery, said: “After the birth, the hospital’s advanced life support team, led by consultant and head neonatologist Dr Wilson Lopez, worked to stabilize Latifa before she was transferred to the neonatal intensive care unit.” A team of experts cared for baby Latifa for a good five months, eventually helping her grow stronger. “She’s a miracle, that’s for sure,” said Dr Nambiar.
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