Against all odds, premature babies survive and thrive

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Madeline Mann, now 22, who in 1989 became the world's smallest surviving baby after being born at Loyola University Medical Center. She weighed 9.9 oz. | Loyola University Medical Center photos

Updated: January 13, 2012 8:11AM

They came into the world, each weighing a little less than a can of pop.

It took the slenderest of plastic tubes inserted into their windpipes to help make their quarter-sized lungs inflate properly.

Madeline Mann in 1989 became the world’s smallest surviving baby when she was born at Loyola University Medical Center. Ditto for Rumaisa Rahmam when she arrived at the same hospital in 2004.

Now, the doctor who helped care for them in those early, uncertain days reports in the Dec. 12 edition of “Pediatrics” — the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics — that both are thriving.

Rumaisa is a happy 7-year-old living in Hanover Park, said Dr. Jonathan Muraskas. Madeline is now 22, and living in Elk Grove Village.

“She’s an honor student,” Muraskas said. “She drives a car. She’s active in college. Physically, she’s fine. She spent last summer in Ecuador doing mission stuff.”

Muraskas, who has stayed in contact with both families, said Madeline calls him “Uncle John.”

To this day, Rumaisa remains the world’s smallest surviving baby at 9.2 ounces. Madeline weighed 9.9 ounces and is now the world’s fourth-smallest survivor.

Many such tiny babies either do not survive or grow up with severe disabilities, such as cerebral palsy, blindness and mental retardation, Muraskas said.

But Rumaisa and Madeline had several things going for them: They are both girls — for still-unknown reasons, girl babies tend to do better than boys; their mothers were both given steroids before birth, which helped their infants’ lungs and brains mature; and both babies had been inside the womb for a relatively long time for their birth weights.

Muraskas still remembers each newborn, resembling a “miniature, beautiful little doll.”

“To be honest with you, they both came out with a little cry — a very weak cry — [but with] a heart rate,” Muraskas said.

The tiny tube — which Muraskas compares to a “cocktail straw” —had to be gently pushed down into each baby’s windpipe because the muscles that are supposed to help babies breathe were so weak.

Muraskas is modest when he talks about his own role in helping ensure Madeline’s and Rumaisa’s survival — he credits the nurses who provided around-the-clock care.

And he also said, “There must be some higher power at work.”