What is the earliest premature baby to survive?
Preterm birth
James Elgin Gill (born on 20 May 1987 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada) was the earliest premature baby in the world, until that record was broken in 2014. He was 128 days premature (21 weeks and 5 days' gestation) and weighed . He survived.
Anna Haining Bates
While touring in the summer of 1878, Anna was pregnant for the second time. The baby was born on January 18, 1879, and survived only 11 hours. He was the largest newborn ever recorded, at 23 pounds 9 ounces (10.7 kg) and nearly 30 inches tall (ca. 75 cm) and each of his feet were six inches (152 mm) long. For this she was posthumously awarded a Guinness World Record. The Bateses resumed touring with the W.W. Cole Circus in the summer of 1879, and again in the spring of 1880. Bates spent her remaining years quietly on the farm that she and her husband owned. She had joined the local Baptist Church in 1877 and attended services with her husband.
Berdon syndrome
Berdon syndrome, also called Megacystis-microcolon-intestinal hypoperistalsis syndrome (MMIH syndrome), is an autosomal recessive fatal genetic disorder affecting newborns. In a 2011 study of 227 children with the syndrome, "the oldest survivor [was] 24 years old." "The Ann Arbor News" reported a five year old survivor at the end of 2015.
Embryo cryopreservation
Pregnancies have been reported from embryos stored for 16 years. A study of more than 11,000 cryopreserved human embryos showed no significant effect of storage time on post-thaw survival for IVF or oocyte donation cycles, or for embryos frozen at the pronuclear or cleavage stages. In addition, the duration of storage had no significant effect on clinical pregnancy, miscarriage, implantation, or live birth rate, whether from IVF or oocyte donation cycles.
Pregnancy over age 50
Maria del Carmen Bousada de Lara is the oldest verified mother; she was aged 67 years 3 days when she gave birth to twins; she was 130 days older than Adriana Iliescu, who gave birth in 2005 to a baby girl. In both cases the children were conceived through IVF with donor eggs. The oldest verified mother to conceive naturally (listed currently in the Guinness Records) is Dawn Brooke (UK); she conceived a son at the age of 59 years in 1997.
Mojokerto child
The Mojokerto child has been the most controversial of the early human fossils that have been found in Indonesia. Its date and even the exact site of its discovery have been widely disputed. First thought to be less than 1.00 Ma (million years old), in 1994 it was claimed, based on what was then a new dating method, that the skull was around 1.81 Ma old. The authors of the paper, Carl C. Swisher III and Garniss Curtis, argued that this date had wide implications for our understanding of the first human migrations "Out of Africa". In the early 2000s, however, new archival and scientific research identified the precise layer from which the fossil was excavated in 1936 and showed conclusively that the fossil's earliest possible date was 1.49 Ma.
List of captive orcas
Katina became pregnant in early spring of 1984 at SeaWorld San Diego from a male named Winston. Soon after, she was moved back to Sea World Ohio for the summer. The trainers soon realized she was pregnant, so she was moved to Orlando at the end of the summer season, where she gave birth on September 26, 1985, to a female who was named Kalina. Although ten orca calves had been born in captivity prior to Kalina, none had survived past a few weeks. Kalina was the first orca calf to be successfully born and raised in captivity. Kalina was taken from her mother at 4 years 5 months and conducted on a trip around all four SeaWorld parks.
Amniote
The first amniotes, referred to as "basal amniotes", resembled small lizards and evolved from the amphibian reptiliomorphs about 312 million years ago, in the Carboniferous geologic period. Their eggs could survive out of the water, allowing amniotes to branch out into drier environments. The eggs could also "breathe" and cope with wastes, allowing the eggs and the amniotes themselves to evolve into larger forms.
Robert Edwards (physiologist)
The birth of Louise Brown, the world's first 'test-tube baby', at on 1978 at the Oldham General Hospital made medical history: in vitro fertilisation meant a new way to help infertile couples who formerly had no possibility of having a baby. Nurse Jean Purdy was the first to see Brown's embryo dividing.
Fetal viability
There is no sharp limit of development, gestational age, or weight at which a human fetus automatically becomes viable. According to studies between 2003 and 2005, 20 to 35 percent of babies born at 23 weeks of gestation survive, while 50 to 70 percent of babies born at 24 to 25 weeks, and more than 90 percent born at 26 to 27 weeks, survive. It is rare for a baby weighing less than 500 g (17.6 ounces) to survive. A baby's chances for survival increase 3-4% per day between 23 and 24 weeks of gestation and about 2-3% per day between 24 and 26 weeks of gestation. After 26 weeks the rate of survival increases at a much slower rate because survival is high already.
Cryopreservation
"Controlled-rate and slow freezing", also known as "slow programmable freezing (SPF)", is a set of well established techniques developed during the early 1970s which enabled the first human embryo frozen birth Zoe Leyland during 1984. Since then, machines that freeze biological samples using programmable sequences, or controlled rates, have been used all over the world for human, animal and cell biology – "freezing down" a sample to better preserve it for eventual thawing, before it is frozen, or cryopreserved, in liquid nitrogen. Such machines are used for freezing oocytes, skin, blood products, embryo, sperm, stem cells and general tissue preservation in hospitals, veterinary practices and research laboratories around the world. As an example, the number of live births from frozen embryos 'slow frozen' is estimated at some 300,000 to 400,000 or 20% of the estimated 3 million in vitro fertilisation (IVF) births.
Alan Moncrieff
Sir Alan Aird Moncrief (9 October 1901, Bournemouth – 24 July 1971) was a British born paediatrician and professor emeritus at University of London. He was most notable for developing the first premature-baby unit in 1947. It was Moncrief who recognized and developed the concept of daily parental visits to the ward, which he developed while at Great Ormond Street, well before the need for this became recognised, and with his ward sister, published an article on Hospital Visiting for Children in 1949.
Post-exposure prophylaxis
A report from early 2013 revealed that a female baby born with the HIV virus displayed no sign of the virus two years after high doses of three antiretroviral drugs were administered within 30 hours of her birth. The findings of the case were presented at the 2013 Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Atlanta, U.S. and the baby is from Mississippi, U.S. The baby—known as the "Mississippi baby"—was considered to be the first child to be "functionally cured" of HIV. However, HIV re-emerged in the child as of July 2014.
Rosenkowitz sextuplets
The Rosenkowitz Sextuplets (born 11 January 1974 in South Africa) were the first known set of sextuplets to survive infancy.
Arterial switch operation
The world's smallest infant to survive an arterial switch was Jerrick De Leon, born 13 weeks premature. At the time of the operation on February 6, 2005, he weighed just over 1.5 pounds (700 grams).
Louisiana Purchase Exposition
Infant incubator – Although infant incubators were invented in the year 1888 by Drs. Alan M. Thomas and William Champion, these devices were not immediately widely used. To increase awareness of the benefits these units provided, infant incubators containing premature babies were displayed at the 1897, 1898, 1901, and 1904 World Fairs. This piece of medical equipment helped neonates with compromised immune systems by providing a sanitary environment to reduce the likelihood of acquiring an infection. Each incubator was an air-tight glass box with a metal frame. Hot air was pumped into the container to keep a constant temperature. Newspapers advertised the incubators with "lives are being preserved by this wonderful method." During the World Fair in 1904, E. M. Bayliss brought these devices for exhibition on The Pike where approximately ten nurses cared for twenty-four neo-natal babies while in the infant incubators. The exhibit required an entrance fee of twenty-five cents and visitors could also purchase souvenirs and refreshments from the adjoining shop and café. These proceeds, totaling $181,632, helped to fund Bayliss's project. There were some setbacks with the infant incubator display as the sanitary conditions were not always consistent and some babies died of illness. The incubator area was then modified by installing glass walls to separate the babies from visitors, thus decreasing the exposure of the infants. The science and technology behind the incubators has since been expanded upon. Now known as "isolettes," these units are a vital component to caring for neonates in modern neonatal intensive care units.
Étienne Stéphane Tarnier
Tarnier is remembered for his work involving the perinatal aspects of obstetrics, and in particular, the treatment and well-being of premature infants. In the 1870s he realized that keeping a constant temperature was not sufficient for a premature infant's survival. He believed that isolation, hygiene, appropriate feeding, and a warm, humid environment were also necessary. Inspired by a device used to incubate poultry, Tarnier introduced prototypes of infant incubators to the Paris Maternité in 1881. These devices were basically wooden boxes with glass lids and compartments that contained hot-water bottles. He called his "baby-warming device" a "couveuse", and through it Tarnier was responsible for a 28% decrease in infant mortality over a three-year period at the Paris Maternité.
Reduced-gravity aircraft
The first zero G plane to enter service in Latin America is a T-39 Sabreliner nicknamed "CONDOR", operated for the Ecuadorian Civilian Space Agency and the Ecuadorian Air Force since May 2008. On June 19, 2008, this plane carried a seven-year-old boy, setting the Guinness world record for the youngest person to fly in microgravity.
Timeline of Australian inventions
1984 – Frozen embryo baby- The world's first frozen embryo baby was born in Melbourne on 28 March 1984
Infanticide in primates
Maternal Infanticide, the killing of dependent young by the mother, is rare in non-human primates and has been reported only a handful of times. Maternal infanticide has been reported once in brown mantled tamarins, "Saguinus fuscicollis," once in black fronted titis, "Callicebus nigrifrons," and four times in mustached tamarins, "Saguinus mystax". It is proposed that maternal infanticide occurs when the mother assesses the probability for infant survival based on previous infant deaths. If it is unlikely that the infant will survive, infanticide may occur. This may allow the mother to invest more in her current offspring or future offspring, leading to a greater net reproductive fitness in the mother.
Baby Doe Law
Baby Jane Doe was born on October 11, 1983, in Long Island, NY, with an open spinal column, (meningomyelocele), hydrocephaly and microcephaly. Surgical closure of the defect and reduction of fluid from her brain was expected to prolong her life – perhaps extending her life from age 2 without the surgery, to age 20 with it – but she was still expected to be bedridden and paralyzed, to have epilepsy and kidney damage, and to have severe brain damage. The parents, who were Roman Catholic Christians, consulted medical specialists, clergy, and social workers to decide what to do. They chose conservative management with nutrition, antibiotics, and bandages, rather than invasive surgery to close the hole in her spine.
Knut (polar bear)
Knut (; 5 December 2006 – 19 March 2011) was an orphaned polar bear born in captivity at the Berlin Zoological Garden. Rejected by his mother at birth, he was raised by zookeepers. He was the first polar bear cub to survive past infancy at the Berlin Zoo in more than 30 years. At one time the subject of international controversy, he became a tourist attraction and commercial success. After the German tabloid newspaper "Bild" ran a quote from an animal rights activist that decried keeping the cub in captivity, fans worldwide rallied in support of his being hand-raised by humans. Children protested outside the zoo, and e-mails and letters expressing sympathy for the cub's life were sent from around the world.
Pregnancy from rape
Many of the youngest documented birth mothers in history experienced precocious puberty and were impregnated as a result of rape, including incest. The youngest, Peruvian Lina Medina, was impregnated when she was four and had a live birth in 1939, at age five.
Chukwu octuplets
All weighed under two pounds at the time of birth. The first born, Ebuka, was delivered on December 8, 15 weeks premature. The remaining 7 octuplets were born by Caesarean section on December 20, 13 weeks premature. The smallest of the octuplets, Odera, died on December 27, a week after birth (she was the lightest of the 8 babies, weighing just over 300 grams (10 oz). The obstetrician was Brian Kirshon, a well-known physician practicing in Houston.
David Tudehope
Among Tudehope's most notable cases were the birth of quintuplets, Tahlia, Olivia, Mikaela, Madaleine and Ethan Wale in 1991 and the birth of Jonathon Heeley who was born 12 weeks premature in 1992 with a birthweight of 374 grams, making him at that time the smallest baby to have ever survived being born in Australia.
Male pregnancy
Since 2000, several hoax web sites have appeared on the Internet purporting to describe the world's first pregnant man. While some rely on legitimate scientific claims, no such experiment has ever been reported. Fertility clinician Cecil Jacobson claimed to have transplanted a fertilized egg from a female baboon to the omentum in the abdominal cavity of a male baboon in the mid-1960s, which then carried the fetus for four months; however, Jacobson did not publish his claims in a scientific journal, and was subsequently convicted on several unrelated counts of fraud for ethical misconduct.
Elizabeth Poblete
On December 8, 2009, Poblete was featured in the world headlines, when she unexpectedly gave birth to a boy during a training session in Brazil, not even realizing that she was pregnant. Her boy was three months premature, and was taken to a local hospital in São Paulo with his mother, where he remained in the intensive care unit. Unfortunately, the boy named Eric Jose died within a week.
Late preterm infant
Late preterm infants are infants born at a gestational age between weeks and weeks. They have higher morbidity and mortality rates than term infants (gestational age ≥37 weeks) due to their relative physiologic and metabolic immaturity, even though they are often the size and weight of some term infants. "Late preterm" has replaced "near term" to describe this group of infants, since near term incorrectly implies that these infants are "almost term" and only require routine neonatal care.
Chaohusaurus
One specimen among those reported in 2014, AGM I-1, also contained the remains of two embryos and one neonate. "Chaohusaurus" thus birthed its young viviparously in the water, like later ichthyosaurs. However, from the orientation of both the embryos inside the maternal body and the neonate that had already been giving birth to, it was clear that the young exited the birth canal head-first. This differs from the method used by most extant marine viviparous Amniota, which expel the young tail-first to prevent them from suffocating. Many younger ichthyosaur specimens had earlier been found showing embryos in both positions, leaving it undecided which was the normal one. Motani "et alii" (2014) concluded that, because "Chaohusaurus" is a very basal form, this provided strong evidence that, at least originally, ichthyopterygian young were born with the head first. This early method might have later been changed because it resulted in a too high mortality. They also cited this as evidence for a terrestrial evolution of viviparity in the land-dwelling ancestors of ichthyosaurs. AGM I-1 in 2014 represented the oldest reptile viviparous birth known.
Nadya Suleman
Nadya Denise Doud-Suleman (born Natalie Denise Suleman; July 11, 1975), known as Octomom in the media, is an American media personality who came to international attention when she gave birth to octuplets in January 2009. The Suleman octuplets are only the second full set of octuplets to be born alive in the United States. One week after their birth, they surpassed the previous worldwide survival rate for a complete set of octuplets set by the Chukwu octuplets in 1998. The circumstances of their high order multiple birth led to controversy in the field of assisted reproductive technology as well as an investigation by the Medical Board of California of the fertility specialist involved.
Maternal somatic support after brain death
According to Esmaelilzadeh, et al., "[a]t present, it seems that there is no clear lower limit to the gestational age which would restrict the physician's efforts to support the brain dead mother and her fetus." However, the older a fetus is when its mother becomes brain dead, the greater its chance for survival. Research into preterm births indicates that "a fetus born before 24 weeks of gestation has a limited chance of survival. At 24, 28 and 32 weeks, a fetus has approximately a 20–30%, 80% and 98% likelihood of survival with a 40%, 10% and less than 2% chance of suffering from a severe handicap, respectively."
Embryo transfer
The development of various methods of cryopreservation of bovine embryos improved embryo transfer technique considerably efficient technology, no longer depending on the immediate readiness of suitable recipients. Pregnancy rates are just slightly less than those achieved with fresh embryos. Recently, the use of cryoprotectants such as ethylene glycol has permitted the direct transfer of bovine embryos. The world's first live crossbred bovine calf produced under tropical conditions by Direct Transfer (DT) of embryo frozen in ethylene glycol freeze media was born on 23 June 1996. Dr. Binoy Sebastian Vettical of Kerala Livestock Development Board Ltd has produced the embryo stored frozen in Ethylene Glycol freeze media by slow programmable freezing (SPF) technique and transferred directly to recipient cattle immediately after thawing the frozen straw in water for the birth of this calf. In a study, in vivo produced crossbred bovine embryos stored frozen in ethylene glycol freeze media were transferred directly to recipients under tropical conditions and achieved a pregnancy rate of 50 percent. In a survey of the North American embryo transfer industry, embryo transfer success rates from direct transfer of embryos were as good as to those achieved with glycerol. Moreover, in 2011, more than 95% of frozen-thawed embryos were transferred by Direct Transfer.
Preterm birth
Historical figures who were born prematurely include Johannes Kepler (born in 1571 at seven months' gestation), Isaac Newton (born in 1642, small enough to fit into a quart mug, according to his mother), Winston Churchill (born in 1874 at seven months' gestation), and Anna Pavlova (born in 1885 at seven months' gestation),
Rotunda Hospital
The Rotunda Hospital, Dublin ("Ospidéal an Rotunda" in Irish) is the oldest continuously operating maternity hospital in the world, founded in 1745. It is the most active maternity hospital in all of Europe. The hospital delivers approximately 9,000 babies annually, and is the most central of the three maternity hospitals in the city. The Rotunda was named Maternity Hospital of the Year at the Irish Healthcare Centre Awards in 2016.
Geoffrey Tovey
Dr Tovey was one of the first surgeons regularly to perform intrauterine blood transfusions on unborn babies. In 1959 he advocated the induction of birth at 36 weeks pregnancy to prevent stillbirth in babies affected by Rhesus Haemolytic Disease; this subsequently saved many lives.
Julius Hess
Working at Michael Reese Hospital, Hess created a form of infant incubator in 1914, then invented an incubator designed for the transport of infants in 1922. By 1934, the Hess incubator was also capable of oxygen administration. Hess created the first premature infant nursery, where he worked with nurse Evelyn Lundeen to optimize care for preterm infants. Around that time, pediatricians had just became involved in the delivery room and nursery care of newborns. Hess and Lundeen focused on providing minimal stimulation and managing the temperature of premature babies.
Colo (gorilla)
Colo (December 22, 1956 – January 17, 2017) was a western gorilla widely known as the first gorilla to be born in captivity anywhere in the world and as the oldest known gorilla in the world. Colo was born at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium to Millie Christina (mother) and Baron Macombo (father), and lived there for her entire life. She was briefly called Cuddles before a contest was held to officially name her. (Mrs. Howard Brannon of Zanesville, Ohio, won the contest.) Colo's name was derived from the place of her birth, Columbus, Ohio.
Mummy
The mummified remains of an infant were discovered during an expedition by archaeologist Fabrizio Mori to Libya during the winter of 1958–1959 in the natural cave structure of Uan Muhuggiag. After curious deposits and cave paintings were discovered on the surfaces of the cave, expedition leaders decided to excavate. Uncovered alongside fragmented animal bone tools was the mummified body of an infant, wrapped in animal skin and wearing a necklace made of ostrich egg shell beads. Professor Tongiorgi of the University of Pisa radiocarbon-dated the infant to between 5,000–8,000 years old. A long incision located on the right abdominal wall, and the absence of internal organs, indicated that the body had been eviscerated post-mortem, possibly in an effort to preserve the remains. A bundle of herbs found within the body cavity also supported this conclusion. Further research revealed that the child had been around 30 months old at the time of death, though gender could not be determined due to poor preservation of the sex organs.
Preterm birth
The record for the smallest premature baby to survive was held for a considerable amount of time by Madeline Mann, who was born in 1989 at 26 weeks, weighing and measuring long. This record was broken in September 2004 by Rumaisa Rahman, who was born in the same hospital at 25 weeks' gestation. At birth, she was long and weighed . Her twin sister was also a small baby, weighing at birth. During pregnancy their mother had suffered from pre-eclampsia, which causes dangerously high blood pressure putting the baby into distress and requiring birth by caesarean section. The larger twin left the hospital at the end of December, while the smaller remained there until 10 February 2005 by which time her weight had increased to . Generally healthy, the twins had to undergo laser eye surgery to correct vision problems, a common occurrence among premature babies.
Preterm birth
The chance of survival at 22 weeks is about 6%, while at 23 weeks it is 26%, 24 weeks 55% and 25 weeks about 72%. The chances of survival without long-term difficulties is less. In the developed world overall survival is about 90% while in low-income countries survival rates are about 10%.
Julius Hess
Julius Hess (January 26, 1876 – November 2, 1955) was an American physician who is often considered the father of American neonatology. In 1922, he published the first textbook focused on the care of prematurity and birth defects in infants. That same year, Hess and nurse Evelyn Lundeen created the first premature infant station in the United States, recognizing the importance of nursing care and temperature management in the care of preterm babies. Hess also made early contributions to the transport of such infants to specialty centers.
Jaime Herrera Beutler
She is only the ninth woman in history to give birth while serving in the United States Congress. On July 29, 2013, it was announced that the baby had been born two weeks earlier, at 28 weeks' gestation. The girl was born without kidneys, becoming the first child in recorded medical history to breathe on her own without both kidneys. In a Facebook post, Herrera Beutler said, "She is every bit a miracle." They have named the child Abigail. On July 24, 2013, Herrera Beutler was absent for a roll call vote concerning the NSA, where she cited health reasons. When she revealed the birth of her daughter, it was realized that the birth was her reason for missing what was considered an important vote.
Preterm birth
The world's smallest premature boy to survive was born in February 2009 at Children's Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota in Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.. Jonathon Whitehill was born at 25 weeks' gestation with a weight of . He was hospitalized in a neonatal intensive care unit for five months, and then discharged.
Preterm birth
About 75% of nearly a million deaths due to preterm deliver would survive if provided warmth, breastfeeding, treatments for infection, and breathing support. If a baby has cardiac arrest at birth and is before 23 weeks or less than 400 g attempts at resuscitation are not indicated.
Organ donation
The youngest organ donor was a baby with anencephaly, born in 2015, who lived for only 100 minutes and donated his kidneys to an adult with renal failure. The oldest known organ donor was a 107-year-old Scottish woman, whose corneas were donated after her death in 2016. The oldest known organ donor for an internal organ was a 92-year-old Texas man, whose family chose to donate his liver after he died of a brain hemorrhage.
Katina (orca)
On September 26, 1985, Katina went into labor. A few hours later, she bore her first calf—a female, who was named Kalina. Although ten Orca calves had been born in captivity prior to Kalina, none of them had survived past a few weeks. This made Kalina the first Orca calf to be successfully born and raised in captivity, which made Katina the first successful mother. The success of the captive Orca breeding program began with Katina in 1985. Kalina went on to live for 25 years, before she died at SeaWorld Orlando in October 2010.
Multiple birth
Quintuplets occur naturally in 1 in 55,000,000 births. The first quintuplets known to survive infancy were the all-female Canadian Dionne Quintuplets, born in 1934. Quintuplets are sometimes referred to as "quins" in the UK and "quints" in North America.
List of captive orcas
Kalina (September 26, 1985 – October 4, 2010) was the first captive-born orca calf to survive more than a few days. Kalina's mother is an Icelandic female named Katina, and her father, Winston (also known as Ramu III) was a Pacific Southern Resident, making Kalina an Atlantic/Pacific hybrid – a unique situation that would not have occurred in the wild. Kalina measured and weighed approximately .
Fetal viability
The limit of viability is the gestational age at which a prematurely born fetus/infant has a 50% chance of long-term survival outside its mother's womb. With the support of neonatal intensive care units, the limit of viability in the developed world has declined since 50 years ago, but has remained unchanged since the late 90s.
Uterus transplantation
In October 2014, it was announced that, for the first time, a healthy baby had been born to a uterine transplant recipient, at an undisclosed location in Sweden. The British medical journal "The Lancet" reported that the baby boy had been born in September, weighing 1.8 kg (3.9 lb) and that the father had said his son was "amazing". The baby had been delivered prematurely at about 32 weeks, by cesarean section, after the mother had developed pre-eclampsia. The Swedish woman, aged 36, had received a uterus in 2013, from a live 61-year-old donor, in an operation led by Dr. Brännström, Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of Gothenburg.
Jean Purdy
Jean Marian Purdy was a British nurse and embryologist and a pioneer of fertility treatment. Purdy was responsible with biologist and physiologist Robert Edwards and obstetrician and gynaecologist Patrick Steptoe for developing in vitro fertilization. Louise Joy Brown, the first test-tube baby, was born on 25 July 1978, and Purdy was the first to see the embryonic cells dividing. Edwards was awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on the development of in vitro fertilization, however because the Nobel Prize is not awarded posthumously, neither Purdy nor Steptoe were eligible for consideration. Purdy was a co-founder of the Bourn Hall Clinic but her role there and in the development of IVF was ignored for thirty years.
Wulf H. Utian
In 1985 he became the first physician to successfully complete the in vitro fertilization of a surrogate mother without using an egg from the surrogate mother. Utian's team instead removed eggs from the ovaries of a woman whose uterus had been removed, fertilized them with her husband's sperm, and implanted the fertilized eggs into the womb of a surrogate mother. Utian reported the event to the "New England Journal of Medicine" in a published letter announcing it as the world's first successful effort of this kind. All previous surrogate pregnancies had used an egg from the surrogate mother instead of the woman unable to have children. The baby, featured in a segment of Nova and as a cover photo story in Life Magazine was also the world's first baby where a court in Michigan determined that the genetic mother and not the birth mother was the one who should be listed on the birth certificate (the first baby in the world where the women who gave birth was not recognized as the mother). The story was featured on the cover of "Life Magazine" and on "Nova".
Preterm birth
Preterm birth, also known as premature birth, is the birth of a baby at fewer than 37 weeks' gestational age. These babies are known as preemies or premies. Symptoms of preterm labor include uterine contractions which occur more often than every ten minutes or the leaking of fluid from the vagina. Premature infants are at greater risk for cerebral palsy, delays in development, hearing problems and sight problems. These risks are greater the earlier a baby is born.
The cause of preterm birth is often not known. Risk factors include diabetes, high blood pressure, being pregnant with more than one baby, being either obese or underweight, a number of vaginal infections, tobacco smoking and psychological stress, among others. It is recommended that labor not be medically induced before 39 weeks unless required for other medical reasons. The same recommendation applies to cesarean section. Medical reasons for early delivery include preeclampsia.
In those at risk, the hormone progesterone, if taken during pregnancy, may prevent preterm birth. Evidence does not support the usefulness of bed rest. It is estimated that at least 75% of preterm infants would survive with appropriate treatment, and the survival rate is highest among the infants born the latest. In women who might deliver between 24 and 37 weeks, corticosteroids improve outcomes. A number of medications, including nifedipine, may delay delivery so that a mother can be moved to where more medical care is available and the corticosteroids have a greater chance to work. Once the baby is born, care includes keeping the baby warm through skin to skin contact, supporting breastfeeding, treating infections and supporting breathing.
Preterm birth is the most common cause of death among infants worldwide. About 15 million babies are preterm each year (5% to 18% of all deliveries). Approximately 0.5% of births are extremely early periviable births, and these account for most of the deaths. In many countries, rates of premature births have increased between the 1990s and 2010s. Complications from preterm births resulted in 0.81 million deaths in 2015 down from 1.57 million in 1990. The chance of survival at 22 weeks is about 6%, while at 23 weeks it is 26%, 24 weeks 55% and 25 weeks about 72%. The chances of survival without any long-term difficulties are lower.
Rae Carruth
Adams was eight months pregnant with Carruth's child at the time. Soon after her admission to the hospital, she fell into a coma. Doctors delivered the baby via emergency caesarean section. Carruth went to the police and posted $3 million bail, on condition that if either Adams or the infant died, he would turn himself in. Adams died on December 14, 1999. The baby, named Chancellor Lee Adams, survived, but suffered permanent brain damage and cerebral palsy as a result of being without oxygen for 70 minutes before he was born.
Fiona (hippopotamus)
Fiona's parents are Henry and Bibi. (Henry died at 36 in October 2017.) She is the first Nile hippo to be born at the Cincinnati Zoo in 75 years, and the first of the species to be scanned in the womb using ultrasound. She was born six weeks premature on January 24, 2017, with a birth weight of ; the recorded range of birth weights for the species at that time was . She was unable to stand and required bottle feeding with milk from her mother, supplemented with infant formula. This was the first time a hippopotamus had been milked and the milk analyzed. The following month, while teething, she began refusing her bottle and became dehydrated; a catheter for the delivery of intravenous fluids was inserted with the assistance of members of the vascular access team at Cincinnati Children's Hospital. The preemie team had previously sent the zoo a care package for her.
Shamu (SeaWorld show)
The first "Baby Shamu" was named Kalina. She was the first surviving orca born in captivity on September 26, 1985. Ten orca calves had been born in captivity before 1985, but five were stillborn and the others all died within two months of their births. Kalina's parents, Katina and Winston, were bestowed the names Kandu VI (Katina) and Ramu (Winston). The stage name "Grandbaby Shamu" was given to Kalina's first calf, which was born on February 2, 1993 – a male named Keet. The first "Great Grandbaby Shamu" was Keet's first calf, born on December 21, 2004 – a female named Kalia. Kalia gave birth to the first "Great Great Grandbaby Shamu" Amaya, on December 2, 2014. The father is Ulises.
Prelabor rupture of membranes
Before 34 weeks, the fetus is at a much higher risk of the complications of prematurity. Therefore, as long as the fetus is doing well, and there are no signs of infection or placental abruption, watchful waiting (expectant management) is recommended. The younger the fetus, the longer it takes for labor to start on its own, but most women will deliver within a week. Waiting usually requires a woman to stay in the hospital so that health care providers can watch her carefully for infection, placental abruption, umbilical cord compression, or any other fetal emergency that would require quick delivery by induction of labor.
Placodermi
Extraordinary evidence of internal fertilization in a placoderm was afforded by the discovery in the Gogo Formation, near Fitzroy Crossing, Kimberley, Western Australia, of a small female placoderm, about in length, which died in the process of giving birth to a 6 cm ( in) offspring and was fossilized with the umbilical cord intact. The fossil, named "Materpiscis attenboroughi" (after scientist David Attenborough), had eggs which were fertilized internally, the mother providing nourishment to the embryo and giving birth to live young. With this discovery, the placoderm became the oldest vertebrate known to have given birth to live young ("viviparous"), pushing the date of first viviparity back some 200 million years earlier than had been previously known. Specimens of the arthrodire "Incisoscutum ritchei", also from the Gogo Formation, have been found with embryos inside them indicating this group also had live bearing ability. The males reproduced by inserting a long clasper into the female. Elongated basipterygia are also found on the phyllolepid placoderms, such as "Austrophyllolepis" and "Cowralepis", both from the Middle Devonian of Australia, suggesting that the basiptergia were used in copulation.
Oocyte cryopreservation
Cryopreservation itself has always played a central role in assisted reproductive technology. With the first cryopreservation of sperm in 1953 and of embryos thirty years later, these techniques have become routine. Dr Christopher Chen of Singapore reported the world's first pregnancy in 1986 using previously frozen oocytes. This report stood alone for several years followed by studies reporting success rates using frozen eggs to be much lower than those of traditional in vitro fertilization (IVF) techniques using fresh oocytes. Providing the lead to a new direction in cryobiology, Dr. Lilia Kuleshova was the first scientist to achieve vitrification of human oocytes that resulted in a live birth in 1999. Then recently, two articles published in the journal, "Fertility and Sterility", reported pregnancy rates using frozen oocytes that were comparable to those of cryopreserved embryos and even fresh embryos. These newer reports affirm that oocyte cryopreservation technology is advancing.
Captive killer whales
Corky (II), a female from the A5 Pod in British Columbia, Canada became the first killer whale to become pregnant in captivity, giving birth on February 28, 1977. The calf died after 18 days. Corky went on to give birth six more times, but the longest surviving calf, Kiva, lived only 47 days. SeaWorld has attracted criticism over its continued captivity of Corky II from the Born Free Foundation, which wants her returned to the wild.
Holy Prepuce
All Jewish boys are required by Jewish law to be circumcised on the eighth day following their birth; the Feast of the Circumcision of Christ, still celebrated by many churches around the world, accordingly falls on January 1. Luke 2:21 (King James Version), reads: "And when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the child, his name was called JESUS, which was so named of the angel before he was conceived in the womb." The first reference to the survival of Christ's severed foreskin comes in the second chapter of the apocryphal Arabic Infancy Gospel which contains the following story:
Oldenburg Baby
The Oldenburg Baby is the name given by the German media to Tim, an infant born in Oldenburg, Lower Saxony, Germany on 6 July 1997. Tim was born prematurely in the twenty-fifth week of pregnancy as the result of a failed late-term abortion. Doctors had expected the child would soon die and thus withheld treatment for 9 hours. He became a focus of the debate surrounding abortion, especially late-term abortion, and its legal and ethical consequences.
Preterm birth
Amillia Taylor is also often cited as the most premature baby. She was born on 24 October 2006 in Miami, Florida, U.S. at 21 weeks and 6 days' gestation. This report has created some confusion as her gestation was measured from the date of conception (through "in vitro" fertilization) rather than the date of her mother's last menstrual period, making her appear 2 weeks younger than if gestation was calculated by the more common method. At birth, she was long and weighed . She suffered digestive and respiratory problems, together with a brain hemorrhage. She was discharged from the Baptist Children's Hospital on 20 February 2007.
Hutzel Women's Hospital
1898: Detroit's first infant incubator for salvaging premature babies.
Diprosopus
Most human infants with diprosopus are stillborn. Known instances of humans with diprosopus surviving for longer than minutes to hours past birth are very rare; only a few are recorded. In 2002 and 2003, two living male infants with partial diprosopus were described in the medical literature in separate case reports. One infant was born with duplication of the nose and the cerebral frontal lobes, two widely spaced eyes, a small, underdeveloped central eye socket, and a large, asymmetric mouth. The other infant was born with duplication of the upper and lower jaw, two tongues ending in the same base, cleft palate, a slightly divided tip of the nose, and two widely spaced eyes, as well as absence of the corpus callosum, duplication of the pituitary gland and stalk, and abnormalities in the midbrain. Because they were born with a milder, partial form of diprosopus, both infants were considered candidates for surgical correction of their abnormal facial features.
Korach (parsha)
Rabban Simeon ben Gamaliel taught that any baby who lives 30 days is not a nonviable, premature birth ("nefel"), because says, "And those that are to be redeemed of them "from a month old" shall you redeem," and as the baby must be redeemed, it follows that the baby is viable.
Black lion tamarin
Most infants deaths occur within the first two weeks of birth, with newborns of first-time mothers having the lowest survival rates. The number of tamarins that survive to adulthood in the wild is 10% higher than those in captivity.
Preterm birth
As risk of brain damage and developmental delay is significant at that threshold even if the infant survives, there are ethical controversies over the aggressiveness of the care rendered to such infants. The limit of viability has also become a factor in the abortion debate.
Pregnancy
Among the oldest surviving examples of the depiction of pregnancy are prehistoric figurines found across much of Eurasia and collectively known as Venus figurines. Some of these appear to be pregnant.
Miscarriage
According to French statutes, an infant born before the age of viability, determined to be 28 weeks, is not registered as a 'child'. If birth occurs after this, the infant is granted a certificate that allows women who have given birth to a stillborn child, to have a symbolic record of that child. This certificate can include a registered and given name with the purpose of allowing a funeral and acknowledgement of the event.
Acalvaria
Usually babies with this malformation do not survive past birth. However, there have been cases of survival. As of 2004, there were only two reported living cases. Of these two, one was severely cognitively impaired and physically disabled. The status of the other was unreported. If the fetus progresses to full term, there is the risk that it will have head trauma from the pressure applied to the head while being delivered. A few other cases of acalvaria have been reported, which did not progress to birth. In addition to the lack skull cap, there were brain malformations present in each case, and all of the pregnancies were terminated either electively or the fetuses were spontaneously aborted.
Jenny (gorilla)
Colo, a 60-year-old gorilla who was kept at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium and was the first gorilla ever born in captivity, succeeded Jenny as the world's oldest known gorilla. Colo died January 17, 2017.
Mesosaurus
Clearly amniote-type fossil embryos of "Mesosaurus" in an advanced stage of development (i.e. fetuses) have been discovered in Uruguay and Brazil. These fossils are the earliest record of amniote fetuses, although amniotes are inferred to have had their typical reproductive strategy since their first appearance in the Late Carboniferous. Prior to their description, the oldest known amniote fetuses were from the Triassic. One isolated coiled fetus called FC-DPV 2504 is not surrounded by calcareous egg shells, suggesting that the glands in the oviduct of "Mesosaurus" and probably all paleozoic amniotes were not able to secrete calcium carbonate, in contrast to post-paleozoic archosaurs. This would explain the scarcity of egg fossils in the paleozoic amniote fossil record. One "Mesosaurus" specimen called MCN-PV 2214 comprises a medium-size adult with a small individual in its rib cage which is interpreted as a fetus ‘in utero’, even suggesting that "Mesosaurus" like many other marine reptiles, gave live birth. If this interpretation is correct, this specimen would represent the earliest known example of viviparity in the fossil record. The isolated fetus FC-DPV 2504, however, rather points to an ovoviviparous reproduction strategy in "Mesosaurus".
Infant mortality
Until the 1990s, Russia and the Soviet Union did not count, as a live birth or as an infant death, extremely premature infants (less than 1,000 g, less than 28 weeks gestational age, or less than 35 cm in length) that were born alive (breathed, had a heartbeat, or exhibited voluntary muscle movement) but failed to survive for at least seven days. Although such extremely premature infants typically accounted for only about 0.5% of all live-born children, their exclusion from both the numerator and the denominator in the reported IMR led to an estimated 22%–25% lower reported IMR. In some cases, too, perhaps because hospitals or regional health departments were held accountable for lowering the IMR in their catchment area, infant deaths that occurred in the 12th month were "transferred" statistically to the 13th month (i.e., the second year of life), and thus no longer classified as an infant death.
Bliss (charity)
Since 1995 Bliss has supported the EPICure study, the longest running study into prematurity in the world, which tracks the chances of survival and later health status of babies born at less than 26 weeks gestational age. This study is helping to inform healthcare and education services to ensure the right support is provided at all times for premature and sick babies as they grow towards adulthood.
Human sex ratio
Reported sex ratios at birth for some human populations may be influenced not only by cultural preferences and social practices that favor the birth or survival of one sex over the other but also by incomplete or inaccurate reporting or recording of the births or the survival of infants. Even what constitutes a live birth or infant death may vary from one population to another. For example, for most of the 20th century in Russia (and the Soviet Union), extremely premature newborns (less than 28 weeks gestational age, or less than 1000 grams in weight, or less than 35 centimeters in length) were not counted as a live birth until they had survived 7 days; and if that infant died in those first 168 hours it would not be counted as an infant death. This led to serious underreporting of the Infant mortality rate (by 22% to 25%) relative to standards recommended by the World Health Organization.
Al aḥqāf
Based on this reasoning, Saudi Arabia's Permanent Committee for Scholarly Research and Ifta issued a "fatwa" (legal opinion) in 2008, saying that resuscitation of premature newborns was only required for infants of at least 6 lunar months (25 weeks and 2 days) gestation. In the cases of infants born before this period, the "fatwa" allowed two "specialist physicians" to study the conditions and decide whether to provide resuscitation or to leave the child to die. According to a group of Saudi pediatric practitioners, in a paper published in "Current Pediatric Reviews" in 2013, this opinion reduces the legal consequences for the deciding physicians, up to the 25th week of gestation, and accordingly Saudi hospitals are less aggressive at resuscitating premature infants below this threshold.
Uan Muhuggiag
The most noteworthy find at Uan Muhuggiag is the well-preserved mummy of a young boy of approximately 2 1/2 years old. The child was in a fetal position, then embalmed, then placed in a sack made of antelope skin, which was insulated by a layer of leaves. The boy's organs were removed, as evidenced by incisions in his stomach and thorax, and an organic preservative was inserted to stop his body from decomposing. An ostrich eggshell necklace was also found around his neck. Radiocarbon dating determined the age of the mummy to be approximately 5600 years old, which makes it about 1000 years older than the earliest previously recorded mummy in ancient Egypt. In 1958-1959, an archaeological expedition led by Antonio Ascenzi conducted anthropological, radiological, histological and chemical analyses on the Uan Muhuggiag mummy. The specimen was determined to be that of a 30-month old child of uncertain sex, who possessed Negroid features. A long incision on the specimen's abdominal wall also indicated that the body had been initially mummified by evisceration and later underwent natural desiccation. One other individual, an adult, was found at Uan Muhuggiag, buried in a crouched position. However, the body showed no evidence of evisceration or any other method of preservation. The body was estimated to date from about 7500 BP.
Mildred T. Stahlman
Stahlman started the first newborn intensive care unit in the world, in order to use respiratory therapy for infants with damaged lungs. In addition, she has researched methods to prevent and treat disease, developed overseas fellowship exchange programs, and initiated the Angel Transport mobile intensive-care unit for newborns. She is an author on more than 100 peer-reviewed articles on neonatal care, focusing on the care of premature infants. Her publications include several papers on ethical and moral issues concerning extreme low birth rate infants.
Robert Bartlett (surgeon)
Bartlett reported the first neonatal survivor of ECMO, referred to as Baby Esperanza, in 1976. Baby Esperanza suffered lung damage from meconium aspiration syndrome and she was so sick that ECMO was applied as a last-ditch effort to save her life. The baby spent three days on Bartlett's machine and she recovered.
Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act
Lawmakers have also referred to the bill as Micah's Law after Micah Pickering, a boy from Iowa who was born prematurely at 20 weeks post-fertilization (22 weeks gestation) in 2012 and survived, and appeared in a 2016 Susan B. Anthony List election ad criticizing Hillary Clinton's support for legal abortion after 20 weeks. Pickering and his family have appeared at press conferences supporting the bill and lobbied members of Congress to pass the law.
In vitro fertilisation
In 1978 Louise Brown was the first child successfully born after her mother received IVF treatment. Brown was born as a result of natural-cycle IVF, where no stimulation was made. The procedure took place at Dr Kershaw's Cottage Hospital (now Dr Kershaw's Hospice) in Royton, Oldham, England. Robert G. Edwards was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2010. The physiologist co-developed the treatment together with Patrick Steptoe and embryologist Jean Purdy but the latter two were not eligible for consideration as they had died and the Nobel Prize is not awarded posthumously.
List of captive orcas
Takara soon became pregnant. On November 23, 2005, around 21:50 EST (4:50 PM), Takara went into labor with her second calf. Her daughter Kohana was at her side. Thirty-two minutes later around 22:22 EST (5:22 PM), Takara gave birth to a male calf (Taku's son/first calf) who was later to be named Trua. Taku sired another calf in 2006 with his mother Katina – Nalani, who was also his sister the first surviving inbred calf.
Jaara baby
The Jaara baby was first discovered by Europeans on 10 September 1904, near the town of Charlton, Victoria, by a woodcutter. He was felling a hollow tree when he discovered the remains wrapped in a possum skin bundle hidden within the tree's trunk. The remains were referred to the Victorian Coroner at the time, who determined that they had been buried in accordance with Aboriginal custom. He suggested that the remains be given to the National Museum of Victoria.
Mouflon
A mouflon was cloned successfully in early 2001 and lived at least seven months, making it the first clone of an endangered mammal to survive beyond infancy. This demonstrated that a common species (in this case, a domestic sheep) can successfully become a surrogate for the birth of an exotic animal such as the mouflon. If cloning of the mouflon can proceed successfully, it has the potential to reduce strain on the number of living specimens.
Walton sextuplets
The Walton sextuplets were born at Liverpool Maternity Hospital in Liverpool, England on 18 November 1983 and were the world's first all-female surviving sextuplets, and the world's fourth known set of surviving sextuplets. The children are Hannah, Lucy, Ruth, Sarah, Kate and Jennifer.
Abortion
Miscarriage, also known as spontaneous abortion, is the unintentional expulsion of an embryo or fetus before the 24th week of gestation. A pregnancy that ends before 37 weeks of gestation resulting in a live-born infant is a "premature birth" or a "preterm birth". When a fetus dies in utero after viability, or during delivery, it is usually termed "stillborn". Premature births and stillbirths are generally not considered to be miscarriages although usage of these terms can sometimes overlap.
Baby hatch
The first modern baby hatch was in South Africa in July 1999 and was installed by Door of Hope Children's Mission (Hole in the Wall) at a small mission church in Berea in Johannesburg. In 1999 the pastor, Cheryl Allen, and deacons learned with deep distress that a high number of newly born infants were abandoned. Pastor Allen realised that many of those desperate women and girls may well have acted differently if there had been an alternative. The church made a hole in their wall and a "baby bin" was installed allowing for mothers to leave their babies any time, day or night. The moment a baby is placed in the "baby bin" care workers on duty receive an electronic signal alerting them. The baby is taken in and the anonymity of the "donor" ensured. Baby M was the first baby that came through the "baby bin", arriving on 3 October 1999. To date (2013) Door of Hope has received over 1300 babies. 148 have come through the "baby bin" but most come from hospitals, police or community members and some babies have even been brought personally by the mothers.
Preterm birth
The earliest gestational age at which the infant has at least a 50% chance of survival is referred to as the limit of viability. As NICU care has improved over the last 40 years, the limit of viability has reduced to approximately 24 weeks. Most newborns who die, and 40% of older infants who die, were born between 20 and 25.9 weeks (gestational age), during the second trimester.
Retinopathy of prematurity
This disease was first described in a premature baby in 1942. Between 1941–1953, over 12,000 babies worldwide were affected by it. Soul musician Stevie Wonder, actor Tom Sullivan, and jazz singer Diane Schuur are a few famous people who have the disease.
Diary of an Unborn Child
"Diary of an Unborn Child" is the title of an anonymously-written article which was published by the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society in the May 22, 1980 issue of its "Awake!" magazine. Written in the first person, it is formatted to read as the "diary" of a fetus, chronicling the process of fetal development from an in-utero perspective, beginning with conception on October 2 and ending in an induced abortion on December 28. The piece is intended to make readers reconsider their position on the morality of abortion.
Jumoke
Jumoke was born on November 10, 1989, at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium. She was the daughter of Toni and granddaughter of Colo, the first gorilla born in captivity. Jumoke was hand-reared until she was 18 months old. While being raised, the keepers would snap their fingers as they came towards the room to make sure she was not startled. She learned from observation how to snap her fingers and smile, and would often do these things when bored or towards people. Because she was hand raised she had a hard time raising her own offspring and required the assistance of surrogates. Jumoke however did save the life of her son Jontu who was not breathing at birth. She put Jontu's head to her mouth and started breathing for him.
Birth
A more developed form of viviparity called placental viviparity is adopted by some species of scorpions and cockroaches, certain genera of sharks, snakes and velvet worms. In these, the developing embryo is nourished by some form of placental structure. The earliest known placenta was found recently in a group of extinct fishes called placoderms, which are ancestral to mammals. A fossil from Australia's Gogo Formation, laid down in the Devonian period, 380 million years ago, was found with an embryo inside it connected by an umbilical cord to a yolk sac. The find confirmed the hypothesis that a sub-group of placoderms, called ptyctodontids, fertilized their eggs internally. Some fishes that fertilize their eggs internally also give birth to live young, as seen here. This discovery moved our knowledge of live birth back 200 million years. The fossil of another genus was found with three embryos in the same position. Placoderms are a sister group of the ancestor of all living jawed fishes (Gnathostomata), including both chondrichthyians, the sharks & rays, and Osteichthyes, the bony fishes.
March of Dimes
In 2009, the March of Dimes partnered with the Department of Reproductive Health and Research of the World Health Organization (RHR/WHO) to publish a white paper on the global and regional toll of preterm birth worldwide. This report, which was the first attempt to identify the global scope of premature births and related infant deaths, found that an estimated 13 million infants worldwide are born premature each year and more than one million of them die in their first month of life. Further, premature births account for 9.6 percent of total births and for 28 percent of newborn deaths. The highest rates of premature birth are in Africa, followed by North America (Canada and the United States combined).
Infant
A newborn is, in colloquial use, an infant who is only hours, days, or up to one month old. In medical contexts, newborn or neonate (from Latin, "neonatus", newborn) refers to an infant in the first 28 days after birth; the term applies to premature, full term, and postmature infants; before birth, the term "fetus" is used. The term "infant" is typically applied to young children under one year of age; however, definitions may vary and may include children up to two years of age. When a human child learns to walk, the term "toddler" may be used instead.
Taung
The Taung Child is among the most important early human fossils ever discovered. It was the first hominid to be discovered in Africa, a species later named "Australopithecus africanus", supporting Charles Darwin's concepts that the closest living relatives of humans are the African apes. It furthermore demonstrated significant differences between reality and the fake skull of a proposed human ancestor from England known as the Piltdown Man or "Eoanthropus". The little skull is hypothesized to be from an approximately three to three and a half year old child. The cast of the brain is preserved by the filling of the skull with limestone breccia. The skull is housed at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Cryobiology
In 1949, bull semen was cryopreserved for the first time by a team of scientists led by Christopher Polge. This led to a much wider use of cryopreservation today, with many organs, tissues and cells routinely stored at low temperatures. Large organs such as hearts are usually stored and transported, for short times only, at cool but not freezing temperatures for transplantation. Cell suspensions (like blood and semen) and thin tissue sections can sometimes be stored almost indefinitely in liquid nitrogen temperature (cryopreservation). Human sperm, eggs, and embryos are routinely stored in fertility research and treatments. Controlled-rate and slow freezing are well established techniques pioneered in the early 1970s which enabled the first human embryo frozen birth (Zoe Leyland) in 1984. Since then, machines that freeze biological samples using programmable steps, or controlled rates, have been used all over the world for human, animal, and cell biology – 'freezing down' a sample to better preserve it for eventual thawing, before it is deep frozen, or cryopreserved, in liquid nitrogen. Such machines are used for freezing oocytes, skin, blood products, embryo, sperm, stem cells, and general tissue preservation in hospitals, veterinary practices, and research labs. The number of live births from 'slow frozen' embryos is some 300,000 to 400,000 or 20% of the estimated 3 million "in vitro" fertilized births. Dr Christopher Chen, Australia, reported the world’s first pregnancy using slow-frozen oocytes from a British controlled-rate freezer in 1986.
Amniote
The amniotic egg represents a critical divergence within the vertebrates, one enabling amniotes to reproduce on dry land—free of the need to return to water for reproduction as required of the amphibians. From this point the amniotes spread around the globe, eventually to become the dominant land vertebrates. Very early in their evolutionary history, basal amniotes diverged into two main lines, the synapsids and the sauropsids, both of which persist into the modern era. The oldest known fossil synapsid is "Protoclepsydrops" from about 312 million years ago, while the oldest known sauropsid is probably "Paleothyris", in the order Captorhinida, from the Middle Pennsylvanian epoch (c. 306–312 million years ago).
Abdominal pregnancy
Advanced abdominal pregnancy refers to situations where the pregnancy continues past 20 weeks of gestation (versus early abdominal pregnancy < 20 weeks). In those situations, live births have been reported in academic journals and also in the lay press where the babies are not uncommonly referred to as 'Miracle babies'. A patient may carry a dead fetus but will not go into labor. Over time, the fetus calcifies and becomes a lithopedion.
Detmold child
Detmold child is the name of a mummy found in Peru. The mummy has been identified to be about 6,500 years old, making it one of the oldest preserved mummies ever found. It was named The Detmold child by its owners Lippisches Landesmuseum in Detmold, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.
Neelam Kler
Neelam Kler is an Indian neonatologist, known for her pioneering work on neonatal intensive care and ventilation. She is credited with developing neonatal care to better the survival rate of extremely tiny preterm babies (less than 1000 grams) to 90 per cent. The Government of India honoured her with the third-highest civilian award, Padmabhushan, in 2014, for her services to the fields of medicine and neonatology.