Record-breaking preemie now four-year-old Mickey Mouse fan

The world’s youngest premature baby to ever survive is now thriving at four years old.

Curtis Means, who has been recognised by Guinness World Records, was born at 21 weeks and one day at Birmingham Hospital in the US state of Alabama. Weighing just 14.8oz, he was lighter than half a bag of sugar.

Now four years old, he weighs around two and a half stone – average for a child his age – and loves speaking to people on his mother’s phone and watching his favourite cartoon Mickey Mouse.

‘Beautiful’

Right to Life UK spokeswoman Catherine Robinson commented: “How amazing to hear that Curtis is doing so well at four years old.

“The fact that the world’s most premature baby was born only four years ago demonstrates how our medical technologies are improving all the time to provide these very tiny babies with the best chance of survival. What a beautiful outcome for little Curtis and his family.”

Curtis was initially given a less than one per cent chance of survival, and his twin brother C’Asya died soon after birth. But Curtis clung to life in a neonatal intensive care unit, using a ventilator to help him breathe for three months.

When Curtis was discharged after 275 days in hospital, mum Michelle said: “Being able to finally take Curtis home and surprise my older children with their younger brother is a moment I will always remember.”

‘Lovely’

In November, Hull’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) reported that over the previous 18 months all five babies in its care who were born before 23 weeks had survived.

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

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

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.