A miracle baby who weighed just one pound at birth was discharged from the hospital on Tuesday after spending three months in an incubator.
The baby, Hannah Bella Rodriguez, left Nassau Medical University Center in East Meadow, Long Island, on Tuesday for the first time since her birth on July 11 by emergency C-section, the Daily Mail reported.
Her mother, Jennifer Pena de Mena, went to the hospital in June with unspecified pregnancy complications.
The doctors decided to deliver Hannah early in July when her heart rate declined very quickly, even though she had 25 weeks to go before she was due.
Since July, Hannah had been fighting for her life while attached to an incubator until doctors determined she had gained enough weight and strength to go home on Tuesday— two weeks after her mother’s scheduled due date.
At a ceremony celebrating the occasion, de Mena remembered the day doctors told her she had to deliver her baby several months early.
“I was crying in the surgery room, but they held my hands, and they told me everything is for your baby,” she told WABC.
Despite the heart-wrenching news, de Mena said she kept a positive outlook.
“I never lost my faith. She was always going to be my beautiful baby, and I love her,” she said through tears. “I am in love with her.”
Hannah was the youngest and smallest baby to be born at the Long Island hospital.
The statistics on life expectancy for babies born prematurely are slim. Babies born after 24 weeks of pregnancy have a 39 percent chance of surviving, and babies born at 22 weeks or less have a very low chance of survival, according to the latest statistics on premature birth survival rates.
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