Stevie O’Reilly is believed to be Australia’s youngest surviving premature baby, born at just 22 weeks and three days, and now her parents are sharing how their little girl is thriving.
“It’s just crazy, crazy how lucky we are,” mum Bree Basile said.
Stevie was born four and a half months early, after Basile developed an infection while travelling from Perth to Queensland with her partner Jake O’Reilly, causing her to go into early labour.
Basile said doctors usually do not attempt resuscitation for babies under 22 weeks, because their bodies are still so underdeveloped.
“Resuscitation usually isn’t offered for babies under 22 weeks and that’s just because babies being so immature,” Basile explained.
“Trying to hold her in just meant crossing my legs and holding on for dear life and nothing was going to happen.”
The couple were told to prepare for the worst, but Stevie entered the world fighting at at just 500 grams – about the size of a pack of dried pasta – and has since survived surgery, sepsis, a bowel perforation and two collapsed lungs.
“We’ve been through the ups and downs, and good days and bad days and bad weeks but we’ve got a result at the end and she’s pretty special,” O’Reilly said.
Stevie is the youngest baby in Australia to survive such an early birth, and while her family are celebrating the little wins, they are also grieving the loss of Stevie’s twin brother, Adrian, who died at 19 days old.
“We were allowed to hold him for three days, because we knew he was going to pass before he did and Jake slept with him on his chest for the whole night,” Basile said.
“We were happy even in such a miserable situation.”
After three months in intensive care in Townsville, Bree and Stevie were cleared to return home to Western Australia on a Royal Flying Doctor Service flight, stopping at Uluru on the way.
Stevie, now four months old, is being cared for at King Edward Memorial Hospital in Perth, where staff say support and close monitoring are essential for babies born this early.
“You can really see the difference that you can make for parents and their babies,” medical co-director for neonatal services Mary Sharp said.
“And they’re very precious babies.”
Stevie has now grown to five times her birth weight, and her parents hope to bring her home for the first time in the next few weeks, just in time for Christmas.
They hope their story can provide strength for other families going through the same thing.
“There’s a lot of grief in having a baby born early, or sick and spending a lot of time in hospital,” Miracle Babies Foundation nurture program team leader Megan Norbury said.
” … It’s just not what you thought life as a parent was going to be like.”
For Basile, Stevie’s progress has been a source of comfort and motivation.
“I really feel like she’s got the strength of two in her, knowing that she can do whatever she sets her mind to, because she’s already done that in many many ways,” she said.
Images: Nine News
