Madeline Mann fit in the palm of a hand.
She was born in June 1989 at Loyola University Medical Center, near Chicago, after just 26 weeks of pregnancy. Her mother had preeclampsia, and the baby stopped growing in the womb. She weighed 9,9 ounces, about 280 grams, and became the world’s smallest surviving baby. Her father, Jim, admitted that at first the whole thing was “terrifying”.
The doctors who resuscitated her battled against almost every odd. She had a mild brain bleed that left no lasting effects, was treated for retinopathy, and developed asthma. Even so, she grew up. In 2011, at 22, she was studying psychology at Augustana College in Illinois, with honors, and meeting all the milestones for language and motor development.
The record changed hands in 2004, when Rumaisa Rahman was born at the same hospital weighing 9,2 ounces. Madeline doesn’t even remember it now: she describes herself as a normal person and a “tough cookie”, hard to crack. Her own doctors urge caution: her case is exceptional, not the norm.