A California hospital on Wednesday announced the birth of the world’s smallest baby ever to survive.

The girl nicknamed ‘Saybie’ by a staff of the Sharp Mary Birch Hospital for Women and Newborns located in San Diego weighed a mere 245 grams (8.6 ounces), the same weight as a large apple when she was born.

She was born 23 weeks and three days into her mother’s pregnancy as against the typical 40 weeeks. The father was told by doctors that he would have about an hour with his daughter before she passed away.

“But that hour turned into two hours which turned into a day, which turned into a week,” the mother said in a video released by the hospital.

Doctors said Saybie was delivered via emergency cesarean section in December at 23 weeks and three days gestation in the womb after severe pregnancy complications had put her mother’s life at risk.


After nearly five months at the hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Saybie was discharged home earlier this month weighing a healthy five pounds (2.2 kilograms) and sporting a graduation cap.

“She is a miracle, that’s for sure,” Kim Norby, one of the nurses who cared for Saybie as she fought to survive said.

Another nurse featured in the video, Emma Wiest said Saybie was so small at birth that ‘you could barely see her on the bed’.

“I’d heard that we had such a tiny baby and it sounded unbelievable because I mean she’s about half of the weight as a normal 23-weeker,” Wiest added.

Doctors said that apart from Saybie’s fighting spirit, her survival as a micro preemie (a baby born before 28 weeks’ gestation) could be attributed to the fact that she suffered no serious complications after birth.
Saybie’s ranking as the world’s tiniest baby ever to survive is according to the Tiniest Babies Registry which is maintained by the University of Iowa.

The previous record was held by a baby born in Germany in 2015 who weighed seven grams more than Saybie.