A baby boy named Saviour who weighed just ONE pound when he was born three months early has beaten the odds to celebrate his first birthday tomorrow.
Doctors warned mum Elena Buca, 27, her baby’s chances of survival were slim when she went into labour just 25 weeks in her pregnancy and drugs failed to halt her contractions.
Tiny Saviour spent four and a half months in intensive care but battled through to reach his landmark.
He now weighs 14lbs and still has a lot of growing to do to catch up with other one year olds but he is healthy and Elena could not be more proud.
Elena, a nurse, said: “I remember thinking when Saviour was in intensive care I just wanted to wake up and see myself with him in a year, without all the tubes.
“I was thinking ‘next year will be different’. I just tried to be positive.”
Saviour was still being supported with oxygen when he left St Michael’s Hospital in Bristol for the first time in February and was finally able to breathe without help in April.
Elena, a single mum from Shirehampton, Bristol, added: “He’s doing really well and he is just catching up.
“We are very lucky. Constantly I think it is just a miracle what they have done for me.
“I am grateful every day.”
Saviour – named after his mother’s desperate prayers – celebrated his first birthday with a return visit to the Cots For Tots house.
Elena spent weeks at the charity home which accommodates families whose babies are being cared for in the neo-natal intensive care unit of the nearby St Michael’s hospital.
