Photo courtesy by WBRC 6.
An Alabama boy born at 21 weeks has been named the world’s most premature infant to survive by the Guinness World Records.
Curtis Means was born July 5, 2020, when his mother, Michelle Butler, had given birth to him and his twin sister, C’Asya, 21 weeks into her pregnancy.
The doctors weren’t expecting the twins to survive. Means sister died one day after birth, but the baby boy was given a miracle of life and surprised everyone, including the doctors.
After surviving the premature birth, Means health was being monitored at the Regional Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (RNICU) at the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Women and Infant Center.
“My prayers have been answered,” Butler told Good Morning America. “I gave God my little girl, and he let me continue to be the mother to Curtis.”
Means was born 132 days premature at the time of his birth. Butler said she had to be extremely careful with him and had to wait a total of four weeks to hold her son. He was so tiny, that he could fit in the palm of her hand.
The baby boy had spent the next nine months in the RNICU, where he received around-the-clock care from nurses and doctors.
“He showed a lot of response to the things we were doing, “said Dr. Brian Sims, professor of pediatrics in the UAB Division of Neonatology and the on-call attending physician when Butler arrived. “It definitely was a surprise that a baby at his age was so much of a fighter or as strong as he was.”
Sims and his colleagues had to watch how Means would respond to the treatments that were given to him because “there is no medical precedent for a baby born so premature.”
“The truth is no baby has survived at this particular age,” he said. “There was no data.”
Butler has two other children, ages 14 and 7, and multiple trips from her home to the RNICU three to four times a week, a three-hour commute trip, to see her son. The nurses would coordinate virtual visits with Butler on the days she was unable to visit him.
“It was ups and downs, good and bad days, “she said. “For a couple of weeks, he’d do really well, and then he’d get sick and go about five steps backward.”
According to doctors, the baby boy had a slim chance of survival at 1% during birth. However, Curtis beat the odds and graduated from the RNICU after 275 days.
Butler was able to bring Means home on April 6, 2021. He was able to meet his siblings for the first time since they couldn’t visit him at the RNICU due to COVID-19 restrictions.
“I surprised my kids,” said Butler. “They didn’t know we were coming home, and they were so excited.”
“Being able to finally take Curtis home and surprise my older children with their younger brother is a moment I will always remember,” she said in a statement, according to ABC 7.
Six months later, Butler and her son returned to the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Women and Infants Center, where they were met with a surprise by the staff who cared for him. The doctors and nurses presented him with the Guinness World Records certificate naming him the world’s most premature infant born to survive.
“People talk about awards and things but to see a patient who had virtually no chance of survival on paper be looking at you and smiling is one of the greatest rewards and awards that a doctor can have,” said Sims. “Curtis did most of the work, but it was an honor to be able to assist him.”
Though Means has come a long way, at 16 months old, he is currently on a feeding tube and still needs oxygen. Doctors believe he’ll be able to go without them soon.
“The good news is that all of the things that he has right now, strong babies, can get off of those things, so that’s very encouraging,” Sims said. “But when we’re taking care of a baby that we’ve never had the opportunity to take care of, a lot of this will be us watching him develop over time.”