A Nebraska baby who was born at just 24 weeks has left the hospital after 116 days.
John McClinton, who is nicknamed “Buddy,” is the smallest premature baby ever to survive birth at Methodist Women’s Hospital in Omaha, weighing less than one pound when he was born at 24 weeks and two days.
“Buddy weighed 14.1 ounces and measured 9.65 inches when he was born on Labor Day, and he is the smallest baby born at the hospital to survive,” staff at Methodist Women’s Hospital announced in a press release on Jan. 16.
After experiencing 14 years of infertility, Buddy’s parents John and Ashley McClinton used IVF to get pregnant. They experienced a stillbirth at 26 weeks with her daughter, Caroline, in 2022. Ashley described feeling emotional at realizing she was headed for very early labor once again in September 2023. Unfortunately, preterm labor is one of the risk factors that comes with IVF. (Editor’s Note: Live Action does not support the use of IVF. Read more about this here. However, we believe that all human beings, regardless of their means of conception, have human dignity and value, and are worthy of the right to life. This includes embryos who may die, be destroyed, or remain perpetually frozen as a result of reproductive technologies.)
“I just thought, ‘I can’t lose another baby,’ Lord,” she told the Omaha World-Herald. “I can’t lose another baby.”
But though he faced immense challenges, Buddy pulled through.
“He came and he was very small,” said Ashley. “But he came out trying to cry and pink and flailing around, and I think we all just kind of knew he was gonna be okay.”
“He’s just fought the whole time,” she added. “He’s a little champion.”
Dr. Chinyere Oarhe, one of the neonatologists who cared for Buddy, said it was remarkable that he didn’t experience any bleeding in the brain, which is a common complication with preemies. “That is amazing for a baby delivered at 24 weeks, 400 grams, that the brain was clean, no bleeds,” Oarhe said.
When Buddy was finally given the go-ahead to leave the hospital with his family, Ashley said it was bittersweet.
“We have formed such close relationships with all of the people that took care of him for [these] 116 days,” she said to Fox News. “So it was a joyful day. But also, you know, a lot of tears, too, because those people that cared for him so well have become like a second family to us.”
Ashley said the family is happily adjusting now that Buddy is at home. “It doesn’t even seem real most of the time. We just feel so fortunate to have him, and also for his sister. I can feel her presence through him, all the time.”
