May 9, 2006 – The smallest baby to ever be delivered, survive and remain on-island is a week old, gaining weight and doing well.
The baby – whose family does not wish to be identified – weighed 1 pound 7 ounces at birth. At one week old, he is 1 pound 13 ounces.
Dr. Beverly Banks Randall, chief of neonatology at Schneider Regional Medical Center, said, "The whole baby fits in the palm of your hand."
In the past, a baby this size born in the Virgin Islands would either have died or would have been transported to a neonatal care unit off-island to receive care, according to a release from Schneider Regional.
But Randall said things have changed. "Due to the concerted efforts of community organizations such as the Miracle Babies Support Foundation, the Inner Wheel and the Community Foundation of the Virgin Islands, our neonatal intensive care now has state-of-the-art equipment and staff that can manage the special needs of a baby this small," Randall said.
She also said the decision to keep the baby at the hospital had to do with the baby himself. She said his spunky tenacity will serve him well in the struggle to survive – which she fully expects him to do.
Randall's confidence in the special care that is offered at Schneider is in part due to the number of babies currently being attended to in the neonatal intensive care unit. She said there are only three babies in the unit, "so everybody gets our undivided attention."
Because of that the babies require fewer invasive tests, which adds to their well-being, Randall said.
In larger hospitals where there may be 100 or more babies in a neonatal intensive care unit at any one time, Randall said, "they are doing tests to establish their well-being."
She said because babies on St. Thomas have the undivided attention of the staff members, they require fewer tests.
"Here, I will look at a baby four or five times a day."
She said that can't happen in large facilities. And she should know. Before coming to Schneider Regional, Randall worked at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania Hospital.
She also gave birth to both of her children at Schneider hospital. She lauded the ability of staff members to "get to know the babies" on St. Thomas because there is such a good staff-to-baby ratio.
Approximately 40 premature babies requiring neonatal intensive care are born every year at Schneider Regional, which is the only hospital in the territory to have a full-time neonatalogist.
The hospital has a 97 percent survival rate for premature babies requiring intensive care, which is significantly better than the national average, Randall said. Nationally, according to the National Center for Health Statistics' most recent findings, of babies under 3 pounds 5 ounces who end up in NICU, 14 out of 100 don't survive. At Schneider that number is three.
Now a week old, Randall says the baby is doing remarkably well, for being so tiny.
He is expected to stay for months in Schneider Hospital's Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, close to his mother and her breast milk.
Randall said that is another crucial advantage to being able to keep a baby on-island. "This baby is so small – the type of milk he needs is breast milk." Pumping the mother's milk and sending it overnight to a hospital off-island has been done, but it's not the ideal for many reasons – including the expense, she said.
Rodney Miller Sr., Schneider chief executive officer, was delighted. "This is truly an example of how our medical center is making miracles happen every day, which is the theme for this year's National Hospital Week," he said. "This is just one ‘little miracle' our health care professionals make happen right here at home."
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