Baby Amandi was born at just 23 weeks’ gestation with the odds stacked against him. As a micro-preemie, Amandi was born on January 10, 2022 in Austin, Texas, weighing only 1lb 5oz.
Despite being born a week before the abortion limit in the UK and having only a 10% chance of survival, Amandi’s parents, Tolulope Omokore and Patrick Allen, were determined to give him a fighting chance.
Tragically, earlier in the pregnancy, one of the twins, named Asaiah, had died in utero due to a rupture of the amniotic sac. Amandi’s mother, Tolulope, had to stay in the hospital until Amandi’s birth while doctors did everything they could to delay labor in order to improve his chances of survival. Despite the difficult circumstances, Tolulope said, “I’m thinking, I’ve just lost one – am I going to lose both of them?” But Amandi fought for his life.
Now, Amandi celebrates his first birthday after spending 155 days in the hospital and defying all odds.
Baby Amandi has come a long way in his journey.
When he was born, he weighed as much as a bag of sugar. Amandi was so premature he had to be put on a ventilator and his lung collapsed. He also had to have a feeding tube put in, he developed pneumonia, and had a pulmonary hemorrhage.
Samantha Smith, the neonatal nurse practitioner at Pediatrix Neonatology of Texas and Ascension Seton Medical Center said “He was relatively stable for a baby that age and size”.
“But we use the words ‘critically stable’ because they are such premature infants. He’s quite the survivor.”
Tolulope held her son for the first time when he was two weeks old. Tolulope recalled, “It was also nerve-wracking because he was intubated. They were so careful. And he loved it. I was warm and he was warm. They said skin-to-skin is so good. And I was like, ‘Wow.’”
Amandi kept growing stronger, and after five months in intensive care, he was able to ‘graduate’. The staff lined up in the hallway and cheered for Baby Amandi and his parents as they finally headed home.
New research shows that a majority of babies born prematurely between 22 and 28 weeks of gestation survive and leave the hospital.
A study conducted by Dr. Edward F Bell of the University of Iowa found that from 2013 to 2018, 78.3% of infants born between 22 and 28 weeks survived to discharge, an improvement from the 76% survival rate from 2008 to 2012. The study, which included 10,877 infants from 19 academic medical centers in the US, also found that these infants were able to be assessed for health and functional outcomes at 22-26 months corrected age.
Tragically, despite the amazing medical advances and growing success of preemie care, the abortion lobby continues to push for abortion through all nine months of pregnancy. While the taking of an innocent Life at any time during gestation is inhumane, most people are especially shocked by taking the Life of a child in the womb when that child could survive outside the womb. While a baby born prematurely at 23 weeks is given the most sophisticated medical care in the world in the fight to survive, a baby in the womb at 23 weeks could be killed in an abortion in many states in our country.
The special care we show to the premature can be a powerful way of advancing the Culture of Life.