The smallest baby in the world is registered in Japan: born with 268 grams

Beat the previous record of the youngest child who survives an untimely birth.

A hospital in Tokyo has authorized the medical badysis of a baby born last August with 268 grams of weight. He has been in an incubator ever since, making him the youngest child in the world to survive a premature birth.

The baby was born through an emergency procedure at Keio University Hospital. He was treated in intensive care for newborns until he reached 3,238 grams, confirmed the doctor in charge, Takeshi Arimitsu.

Arimitsu pointed out that, even though it was a case of "high risk", the success shows that "the baby is likely to leave the hospital even though he was born very small".

For her part, the mother of the child, who did not want to make his name public, expressed his "happiness to see him so big" then to "not know if he could survive ".

According to the University of Keio, it is the youngest child to have survived an untimely birth, a record that, until now, bore a baby born in Germany in 2009 with 274 grams of weight. In this same country was born in 2015 the youngest girl of which there exists to date evidence, with only 252 grams.

In Japan, the world's lowest child mortality country according to UNICEF data, the survival rate for children weighing less than 1 kg is 90%, but this proportion falls to less than 50%. young babies. at 300 grams.

There were 23 babies born prematurely weighing less than 300 grams and who survived. According to the Tiniest Babies Registry website, only four of them were men.