Tiny Japanese baby boy ready to go home
April 19, 2019
A Japanese baby boy who weighed just 258 grams (9 ounces) at birth has been allowed to go home by doctors after almost seven months in hospital.
Ryusuke Sekino, who was born on October 1, 2018, by Caesarean section now weighs more than 3 kilograms (7 pounds) — some 13 times his birth weight — and doctors say he is healthy.
"I can really feel his weight now. He used to be so light," his mother told Fuji TV news, saying Ryusuke had been so small she had been scared of breaking him.
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Looking forward to the first bath
"Now he drinks milk. We can give him a bath. I am happy that I can see him growing, " she said.
According to the Tiniest Babies Registry kept by the University of Iowa in the US, the previous smallest surviving boy weighed 268 grams when he was born last year in Japan. That baby was discharged from hospital in February. The smallest surviving girl was born in Germany in 2015. She weighed just 252 grams at birth.
Tiny baby boys are much less likely to survive than girls of similar weight.
tj/msh (AP, AFP)