Premature Baby Weighing Under 14 Ounces Celebrates 1st Birthday In Atlantic City
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ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (CBS) - A New Jersey hospital is celebrating a very special birthday for a baby who beat the odds and survived. AtlantiCare in Atlantic City held a special reunion with its team members and the hospital's lowest-birth-weight surviving baby, MaKenna, who turns 1-year-old today.
Baby MaKenna was born at AtlantiCare's main campus on March 12, 2018. She weighed 13.7 ounces and was 10 ¾ inches long. MaKenna had arrived 16 weeks earlier than her July 1 due date.
Babies born that prematurely face all kinds of potential complications, but as this baby is a fighter.
She is now nearly 15 pounds, 24 ½ inches long, healthy and celebrating her first birthday.
The early delivery came when her mom, Alyssa Spruill, was 24-weeks pregnant and developed severe pre-eclampsia, with the possibility of having a stroke and loosing the baby.
"One of the things that most amazes me is how observant MaKenna is," said MaKenna's mom, Alyssa Spruill. "She loves playing 'peek-a-boo' with her siblings. She laughs so hard when she plays with them. She's got attitude and a voice! She lets us know when she wants something."
Spruill says she plans on celebrating MaKenna's birthday twice every year.
"We'll celebrate March 12 – the day the team saved my life and brought MaKenna into the world. We'll also mark July 3 as the day she left the NICU," said Spruill.
MaKenna was sent home from the hospital in August with 113 pink and white carnations -- one for each day she was in the NICU.
MaKenna is the lowest-birth-weight surviving baby for whom AtlantiCare has cared since opening its NICU in 1972.