Babies born at 22 weeks ‘surviving and going home’, Hull NICU reports

In the past 18 months, all five babies cared for in Hull’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) who were born before 23 weeks have survived.

Baby Mabel, born at 22 weeks and five days, has been discharged from the unit at Hull University Teaching Hospitals Trust and transferred to a hospital closer to home, though she has not yet reached her original due date.

Zachary arrived weighing just 520g, scarcely half a bag of sugar, when he was born at 22 weeks and six days. Now, after two and a half months, mum Lauren is hopeful that, like Mabel, he will soon be discharged.

Success

Lauren explained: “It’s definitely been scary. There’s been moments where they have said it’s been on a knife edge and we weren’t sure what the next hour or the next day would be like.

“But we’re here 10 weeks later.”

Neonatal Matron Francesca Matthews said: “babies are going home and are surviving, I think that’s a really lovely thing for a family to see”.

She said the NICU in Hull is “one of the best” in England, explaining, “we have all the technology and equipment to be able to care for those babies and our survival and success rate is incredibly high”.

Liberal law

In Great Britain, abortion is currently permitted for most reasons up to 24 weeks, but up to birth if the unborn child is deemed to have a disability.

Watch The Christian Institute’s Choose Life series – people’s personal stories of how they were deeply affected by pregnancy, abortion and choosing life.