The Youngest Survivor with Gestational Age of 21(5/7) Weeks

ABSTRACT

The decision whether or not to resuscitate extremely low gestational age (GA) infants is recommended to be individualized according to antenatal counseling with parents, neonatologists, and obstetricians. A GA of 22(0/7)–23(6/7) weeks is generally considered as the lower end of the range where infants can be candidates for selective resuscitation. Below this lower end of periviable gestation, resuscitation is usually not considered and survivors are rarely reported. To date, the youngest survivor is an infant with a GA of 21(6/7) weeks reported in the English medical literature. Here, we report the case of a female infant, the first twin conceived through in vitro fertilization, with a GA of 21(5/7) weeks, who was resuscitated initially according to strong parental wishes after antenatal counseling and is still surviving at 43 months of age with fairly good neurodevelopmental outcome.