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Smallest surviving baby born in NC goes home

By Mark Schulman
By Mark Schulman

The smallest surviving baby born in North Carolina is going home with her family.
 
E'Layah Pegues was delivered via C-section in September at 24-weeks old. She weighed just 10 ounces or the weight of two baseballs.
 
At first, doctors at Carolinas Medical Center's Levine's Children's Hospital didn't think she would survive. E'Layah was one of the smallest babies they had ever delivered.
 
"She was a miracle just in the fact that she was able to make it out of the delivery room and survive the first couple of weeks," Dr. Jennifer Clark-Pounder said.
 
Doctors and nurses had to help E'Layah's breathe, control her body temperature and monitor her nutrition intake.
 
"We have special premature formula that we use for all of our babies," Clark-Pounder said. "We gave E'layah even more calories with every ounce of formula than other babies."
 
Week after week, E'Layah started to gain weight and get stronger.
 
She now weighs 5 pounds 8 ounces, more than nine times her birth weight.
 
Throughout her hospital stay, E'Layah's mother Megan Smith has not left her side. Each time her daughter's discharge date would get pushed back, Smith said she would get discouraged.
 
"It's frustrating because you get hope and you think finally my baby is coming home," Smith said. "After all this long time, today is the day."
 
Doctors at CMC say E'Layah's progress is nothing short of a miracle.

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