AFTER being nurtured for 108 days in the NICU of a maternal and child care hospital in Bao’an District, a prematurely born infant, who weighed only 530 grams at birth, was released from the hospital Wednesday.

The baby was named Qiqi, which literally means “miracle,” to reference the remarkable medical achievement that helped the preemie, with a gestational age of less than 24 weeks (normal gestational age is around 37 weeks), to survive.

To provide professional care for Qiqi at home, his parents stayed at the hospital for more than 10 days to learn how to use the medical equipment and gear they are borrowing from the hospital. “Since my baby still suffers from some occasional syndromes, the hospital is letting us bring some monitoring equipment home so that we can monitor his condition,” said Qiqi’s mother. “I am really grateful to the hospital.”

The mother went through four treatments to prevent a miscarriage before giving birth to Qiqi. The boy was born in a critical situation because he was too premature to be delivered and all his organs were seriously immature.

To protect Qiqi’s delicate and fair skin from infection, the medical staff made him a comfortable waterbed out of a soft and sterilized cotton bedcloth. Nurses cleaned up the secretions from the infant’s respiratory tract every 30 minutes, because the infant could easily have been choked due to having such a small respiratory tract.

Qiqi’s blood sugar was unstable, so the medical staff had to monitor the infant’s blood sugar at all times and report every subtle change to doctors in order to adjust the infusion speed.

Thanks to the medical staff and doctors’ countless and considerate care, Qiqi overcame various issues and eventually was healthy enough to go home with his parents. The hospital even created a special WeChat group with more than 10 medical staff and doctors ready to give timely answers to questions posed by Qiqi’s parents.

(Zhang Qian)