World's Most Premature Baby Celebrates First Birthday

Wisconsin baby sets a Guinness World Record
By Liz MacGahan,  Newser Staff
Posted Jun 20, 2021 2:30 PM CDT
World's Most Premature Baby Celebrates First Birthday
This handout photo provided by the March of Dimes Foundation shows a tiny baby in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at the Albany Medical Center in Albany, NY.   (AP Photo/Jennifer Coate, March of Dimes Foundation)

Richard Scott William Hutchinson set a record on his birthday this year. It’s his first birthday, a milestone that means he overcame grim odds. Richard is the most premature baby in the world to survive, a distinction made official by Guinness World Records. Due in October 2020, he was born June 5, which means he was about four months early. He weighed only 11.9 ounces and could fit in the palm of a hand. His parents were told he had a 0% chance of survival, his neonatologist, Dr. Stacy Kern, said. It’s been a tough year on Richard and his parents, Rick and Beth Hutchinson.

The family lives in St. Croix, Wisconsin, but Richard was born in Children’s Minnesota Hospital in Minneapolis, and, because of COVID restrictions, his parents had to commute every day to visit Richard in the neonatal ICU. They were the only family members who could visit the baby, too, CNN reports. It wasn’t until the last month of 2020 that Richard was able to go home. Richard’s dad didn’t mind the constant travel. "I think that helped him get through this because he knew he could count on us," Rick Hutchinson said. (More uplifting news stories.)

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