Teenager gives birth to UK’s smallest premature baby in 20 years

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A young mother has given birth to a baby who is said to be the UK’s smallest premature baby for 20 years.

Ellie Paton, 17, welcomed her daughter, Hannah, on December 30, born prematurely after 25 weeks of pregnancy.

Ms Paton and her partner, Brandon Stibbles, have been warned their daughter may not survive until childbirth.

After attending a 22-week CT scan at Crosshouse Hospital in Kilmarnock, Ayrshire, doctors informed the couple their baby was the size of a 16-week fetus.

Ms Paton was then diagnosed with preeclampsia, a condition that affects some pregnant women, usually during the second half of pregnancy (starting at 20 weeks) or soon after giving birth to their baby.

Symptoms, according to the NHS, can include: severe headaches, vision problems such as blurring or blinking, pain just under the ribs, and vomiting.

The couple had not set a date for a Caesarean section when, on December 29, Ms Paton woke up with stomach and chest pain and was taken to hospital to deliver her daughter.

Hannah was born weighing 325 g (11 oz) after doctors gave her a 20% chance of surviving.

(Brandon Stibbles / SWNS)

The infant is always monitored in the hospital; Ms Paton and Mr Stibbles have been told that the earliest they could possibly get her home is in April, when she was originally due.

It was just scary all the time, Ms. Paton says of childbirth.

We are allowed to put our hands in the incubator, I held her once she sleeps on something called the nest, she adds.

When the nurse changed it, I had to hold it upright. He will soon be able to hold her.

The UK’s smallest baby before Hannah was thought to be Aaliyah Hart, who weighed 12 oz (340 g) when she was born in 2003.

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