Most pregnant women never know this, but many hospitals have a cut-off date at when they will attempt to deliver and save your baby. The term some women use for this date is called V-Day, or Viability Day. Other hospitals go by the situation, but determining when they should attempt to deliver and save a premature baby can be a little more complicated than you think.
You’ll find differing answers depending on who you ask, but age of viability is typically after 24-weeks gestation. A baby born this young requires extremely special 24-hour around the clock care and invasive medical equipment such as a ventilator. Babies born prior to this may not survive with immediate care from a specialist, so it might be safer to say V-Day truly lies at 24 weeks. Also, the odds of a premature baby born at 23 weeks has a 17 percent chance of survival, but this number more than doubles one week later with a 39 percent chance of survival. That percentage rate keeps climbing to 50 percent at 25 weeks, 80 percent at 26 weeks, and eventually at 34 weeks a preemie infant is almost as likely to survive as a full-term baby.
It is truly amazing to hear some of the stories on babies who survive the cusp of viability. There was an instance in the United Kingdom just last month where a pair of scissors accidentally left on the scale gave doctors the wrong impression on how much a little girl named Maddalena actually weighed. When doctors delivered the little girl at 22 weeks gestation, they decided to give her a fight at survival when they saw she weighed 1 pound. Turns out a pair of scissors was accidentally left on the scale, but no one realized till later when she was weighed again at a more accurate 382 grams, or a little over half a pound. Despite the odds, the little girl survived and is now thriving. This raises the ethical question of should doctors really have a “cut-off” date as to when they should attempt to save a premature baby.
I once worked with a student in a kindergarten class who I thought was exceptionally intelligent, well-mannered, and academically above his peers. Physically, he was on the smaller side, but not enough to give it a second thought. His only issue was he had some fine-motor difficulties, but he was certainly making strides in that area as the school year went by. I later learned that this little boy was born at 22 weeks gestation. Not all babies born this early are doomed to a life of life-altering disabilities!
Modern medicine is amazing, but even more amazing is the human’s ability to survive and persevere, no matter how small.
