The world’s most premature twins are a brother and sister from Canada born at 22 weeks, according to Guinness World Records.
Adiah and Adrial Nadarajah beat the previous record of 125 days set in 2018 by twins in the US state of Iowa by being born 126 days early.
According to Guinness, the hospital would not have tried to perform life-saving procedures if the babies had been born even one hour earlier than at 22 weeks.
The average gestational age is 40 weeks, so they are 18 weeks early. Doctors told the mother, Shakina Rajendram, that the babies “were not viable” and had a “0% chance of survival” when she went into labour at just 21 weeks and 5 days.
It was her second pregnancy after she lost her first one just a few months earlier in the same hospital near their home in Ontario.
Father Kevin Nadarajah stated that the doctors told them they weren’t able to help such a rare early pregnancy, deciding to leave him awake at night praying with a “face streaming with tears”.
The majority of hospitals do not try to save newborns who are born before 24 to 26 weeks. However, thanks to Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, which has a specialized neonatal intensive care unit, the couple was able to relocate.
At 21 weeks and 6 days into the pregnancy, on Mrs. Rajendram’s second day of labour, she was informed that the babies would be abandoned to perish if they were born even a few minutes early (before 22 weeks).
She claimed that despite significant bleeding, she made every effort to “hold the babies in” for a few more hours.
Eventually, 15 minutes after midnight, her water bag broke. The world’s most premature twins were born less than two hours after 22 weeks in the womb.
Despite significant medical issues at an early age, Adiah and Adrial have now survived to be one year old.
The babies nearly died in front of our eyes numerous times, Mrs. Rajendram recalled. The siblings are “doing great” even though doctors are still closely monitoring them.
“We watched the babies almost die before our eyes many times,” Mrs. Rajendram said. While they are still being closely followed by doctors, the siblings are “doing great”.
Curtis Means of Alabama, who was born at 21 weeks and one day, was the most premature child ever.
