April 2015 Featured Child: Xiang

This month’s featured child is little Xiang, who arrived at Little Flower on August 31, 2014. His journey of arriving at Little Flower is very heart warming and it also captures the extra care needed by premature babies. Xiang weighed only 2 lbs 2 oz (950 grams) when he was abandoned.

Being a premature baby, he needed intense care to survive. His condition was not stable when he arrived, so we admitted him to the NICU of the children’s hospital in his province. He spent ten days in NICU, struggling to breathe and become stable. After 10 days in the NICU his condition was still very critical. He was dependent on the ventilator to help him breathe, had lost weight and his infection was not yet under control. The doctors did not believe he had any hope and told us to take him home to die. But we and little Xiang didn’t want to give up yet.

After he left the hospital we were amazed to see him fighting hard to hold on. We decided to transfer him to Beijing where doctors might consider treating him. One of our staff brought him to Beijing from the town his orphanage is located in via train by ‘kangarooing’ him the entire way. He was so tiny that he needed to be on someone’s skin the entire journey for warmth and to survive. He weighed a mere 1 lb 10 oz (750 grams) when he arrived at our Beijing Baby Home, and so needed all the extra care we could give! At our Beijing home, our staff held him skin to skin for 24 hours straight so he could survive. However, he was still struggling to breathe. He was readmitted to a Beijing hospital with Respiratory Distress Syndrome (RDS), a common problem seen in premature infants.

After a short stay in the NICU at #81 Children’s Hospital in Beijing he was discharged back to our home still very tiny but breathing more easily. With the help of lots of kangaroo skin to skin time, little Xiang started to push through.

With all the extra care and love, little Xiang continued to grow and become bigger and stronger. His cute smile is simply adorable!

He has made a lot of progress! Now, he is stable and growing. He now weighs 12.2 lbs (5.53kgs) and if you saw him now, you won’t believe he is the same boy! He is a real miracle!