600-gr. newborn beats odds, sent home at 2.24 kg.

Surviving triplet heads home four months after birth.

By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH
Baby Jazen Jamal 311 (photo credit: Courtesy Western Galilee Government Hospital))
Baby Jazen Jamal 311
(photo credit: Courtesy Western Galilee Government Hospital))
A baby born weighing only 600 grams in the 23rd week of pregnancy and whose two siblings died due to their prematurity was sent home on Monday weighing a hearty 2.24 kg. – four months after his birth.
The baby, Jazen Jamal, was born to a Druse couple, Hend and Haiel, at Western Galilee Government Hospital in Nahariya. The childless couple, who live in Kafr Yarka, had undergone fertility treatments, but the triplet fetuses were very small.
Even though Hend was hospitalized in the high-risk pregnancy unit for a month, the fetuses refused to remain in the womb much longer. A boy and a girl died at 23 weeks of pregnancy, leaving just one of the triplets.
Jazen struggled to survive in the premature baby intensive care unit, where Dr. Vered Fleischer-Sheffer was a member of the team that took care of the baby.
“Twenty-three weeks is the recognized border between life and death for [premature babies] because the lungs, brain and digestive system are not ripe. It is rare indeed for a baby who is one of a multiple pregnancy to survive when born at that stage,” she said. The chances for survival for a baby born at 23 weeks is only 7 percent, she added.
“It was a real miracle,” said the happy father. “I am shaking from excitement. He survived severe infections and diseases, and all this at a very low birthweight and age.” \ Incredibly, the baby apparently does not suffer from any disability.
“We go home with joy and tears combined,” the couple said, “because we are bringing the baby home but without his two siblings. We want to thank the doctors and nurses for the holy work they do.”
Hospital director Dr. Masad Barhoum said that keeping the baby alive and healthy was an “impressive achievement; I am proud of the professional medical staff that took care of him from the moment he was born.”