Good things come in small packages. Just ask Jaden Morrow, a newborn baby who weighs less than a can of beans.
Jaden was born earlier this month at Blank Children’s Hospital in Des Moines, Iowa by caesarean section. The little boy weighs just 13 ounces, or 0.8 pounds – making him the smallest premature child born at the hospital in the last decade, according to reports.
The boy was born July 11 and is expected to remain in the hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit until his due date in early November.
Jaden initially lost some weight in hospital, dropping down one ounce, but he has since regained weight after drinking his mother’s milk.
The baby’s mother, Ellonn Smartt, said Jaden has received 14 blood transfusions to help him survive.
“For those that give blood, you have no idea how much you really do,” she wrote in a Facebook post.
Video footage taken in hospital shows the child breathing through tubes while a doctor checks his heartbeat.
The smallest baby ever born was delivered earlier this year at a San Diego hospital. The child, identified only as Sadie, was born at 23 weeks and weighed just 8.6 ounces – about as much as an apple. In May, Sadie went home weighing 5 pounds, and her doctors described her as happy and healthy.
