I reported this afternoon that Amillia Taylor, the miracle baby born at 22 week would be going home after her 4 month stay in a Miami hospital.

BBC is stating that the doctors have changed their minds and the baby will be staying in the hospital for a few more days for monitoring.

This must be let down for the parents, who are probably hoping to get their lives back to normal soon.

Doctors say she will still have to be monitored closely after her release, requiring asthma medication and extra oxygen for months to come, as she still weighs less than 4lb 6oz (2kg).

We will cross our fingers that Amillia will be hope soon.

Cord blood is rich in stem cells, the building blocks that produce blood — and the same stem cells that make up the bone-marrow transplants that help many people survive certain cancers and other diseases. But cord blood has some advantages: These younger stem cells are more easily transplanted into unrelated people than bone marrow is, and they can be thawed at a moment’s notice, much easier than searching out a bone-marrow donor.

With that being said, once your child is born you can choose to bank their cord blood for future use. The cost is quite high, but the benefits to your family down the road could be priceless.

The American Government is beginning to set up the first national cord-blood banking system, aiming to prevent some 12,000 deaths a year — if public banks can compete with marketing-savvy private companies that now house the bulk of the world’s preserved cord blood.

They are hoping for parents, who will not be banking their childs cord blood for future family use, to donate the blood to be used for others that are in need of the cells.

“Unless you have a family member with cancer, it’s unlikely you would ever need it, and you would be doing a service to humanity to donate it.” Dr. Elizabeth Shpall of the public M.D. Anderson Cord Blood Bank

Today, about 50,000 cord blood donations are stored in more than 20 public banks around the country. The new National Cord Blood Inventory aims to triple that number, enough that virtually anyone who needs stem cell treatment could find a match — especially minority patients who today seldom can as most bone marrow donors are white.

The American Academy of Pediatrics says that you should only consider personally banking your child’s blood if an older sibling has cancer or certain genetic diseases that cord blood is proven to treat.

Private banks vehemently disagree, arguing that as scientists learn more about stem cells, the blood could create personalized treatments for heart disease or other more common killers.

“That’s still considered very experimental,” counters Dr. Mitchell Cairo of Columbia University Medical Center, who co-authored the new guidelines.

Also, doctors don’t even know if cord blood remains usable after being stored for decades.
Still, last month Illinois doctors reported the first apparent success in treating a child’s leukemia with her own cord blood — something usually impossible because that blood so often carries the cancer-triggering genetic defect.

About 11 states have recently passed legislation to try to increase the information that expectant parents receive about their cord blood choices: store it, donate it, or discard it.

Realistically, if you do not feel that your child will ever benefit from his/her’s cord blood, it should be donated. Sometimes doing something good for the rest of mankind feels good. There would be no risk to you or the baby, but your good deed could possibly save someone else’s life.

The list of Diseases treated by Blood Stem Cells

SOURCE:MSNBC

At the hospital where my son was born, a baby that was 22 weeks gestation would not be resuscitated.

This story is absolutely amazing!! I would be interested to know if her parents have a blog so that the world can follow her development.

Her minuscule feet poking pathetically through a doctor’s fingers, few believed that she could possibly live. Born only 21 weeks and six days after conception, Amillia Taylor weighed just under 10oz and was only 91/2 inches long.

Medical staff, however, were given a clue to her fighting spirit when the tiny scrap tried to cry and breathe on her own.

And now, four months later and weighing 4lb, she has been allowed home – the world’s most premature baby to have survived.

Her parents Sonja and Eddie, from Homestead, Florida, were visiting friends in Miami when Mrs Taylor went into labour at just over 19 weeks pregnant, having conceived by IVF.

Doctors attempted to delay the birth but eventually were forced to carry out an emergency caesarean.

Dr Guillermo Lievano, who delivered Amillia, said he was not expecting her to survive.

“I was prepared for the worst and prepared to break the bad news to the mother.”

Amillia responded to treatment, however. During two months in an incubator, she even had plastic surgery after her left ear was partially torn off during the delivery.

“I’m still in amazement,” said Mrs Taylor, 37, a teacher. “I wanted her to have a chance and I knew in my heart that she was going to make it.

“It was hard to imagine she would get this far. But now she is beginning to look like a real baby. Even though she’s only 4lb now, she’s plump to me.”

William Smalling, neo-natologist at Baptist Children’s Hospital in Miami, said: “She’s truly a miracle baby. We didn’t even know what a normal blood pressure is for a baby this small.”

The American Association of Pediatrics says that babies born at less than 23 weeks of age and 400g in weight are not considered viable. The survival rate for a child born at 23 weeks and weighing a pound is just 30 per cent.

Dr Smalling said: “It may be that we need to reconsider our standard for viability in light of Amillia’s case.”

He said: “Over the years, the technology that we have available to save these premature babies has improved dramatically. Today, we can save babies that would have never survived 10 years ago.”

Amillia is going home today and we wish her parents GOOD LUCK!! Enjoy your baby without all of the bells going off, and nurses watching over you.

Amillia’s incredible story will reignite the debate over Britain’s abortion laws, which campaigners say must be updated in the light of recent medical advances.

Babies can still be aborted for non-medical reasons at up to 24 weeks. Recent evidence shows that, of those born at 25 weeks, half of them manage to live.

Can you believe that there is a doctor out there that would abort a baby at 24 weeks??? I am in SHOCK!! What a sour way to end a great story.

SOURCE:DAILYMAIL, TIMESONLINE

Over the weekend it was reported that Tom Brady and Bridget Moynahan were expecting a baby.

Unfortunately, the couple are not still together and Tom is now seeing Gisele Bundchen. This is where is gets messy.

Bridget reportedly didn’t inform the New England Patriots quarterback until the last minute that she was planning on announcing that she is more than three months pregnant through Liz Smith’s New York Post gossip column.

A friend of Brady’s tells Us that the Superbowl champ was blindsided by Moynahan’s press blitz. “He’s disappointed this is how she’s decided to play it,” says the pal. “She announced it to make him look like a jerk.”

While the friend says the couple didn’t know Moynahan, 36, was pregnant when they broke up in November, Brady “has known about it for a while.”

The baby announcement apparently put a damper on Brady’s romantic Paris getaway with new girlfriend Gisele Bundchen. The couple was vacationing at The Ritz when news of the pregnancy broke.

On the night of February 17, Brady, 29, began “taking constant calls on his cell” while at the hotel, says a Ritz source.

But the 26-year-old supermodel — who’d been acting as tour guide for her man during sojourns to Versailles and Cafe de la Paix — didn’t seem fazed that their sightseeing was interrupted.

Says the source: “Whenever he started to look stern, Gisele would give him a kiss and say, ‘Stay cool.’”

Meanwhile, a Moynahan friend denies that the I, Robot actress was trying to make her ex look bad in the press saying, “The timing of the announcement wasn’t anything more than she’s starting to show.”

You have to admit…the timing was perfect. Announce something big on the exact weekend your ex-boyfriend is on his first vacation with his new gal. Just for the record, no one shows at 3 months unless you are having twins or this is your third baby.

PHOTOCREDIT:GETTYIMAGES
SOURCE:USWEEKLY

Being pregnant can be a difficult time for some women. INO has a photo of Mel B AKA “Scary Spice”. She definitely looks like this pregnancy has been a challenge.

I am, however, willing to cut her slack because I know how “hot” I look on Tuesday mornings at the grocery store.