World's smallest baby boy ready to go home from hospital

The world's smallest baby boy, who was born in Japan last October weighing only as much as an apple, is expected to be released from Nagano Children's Hospital over the weekend, his doctor said on Friday.

Seven-month-old Ryusuke Sekiya is pictured with his parents the day before his scheduled discharge from a hospital in Azumino in Japan's Nagano Prefecture on Friday, April 19, 2019. [Photo: Kyodo News via AP]

Ryusuke Sekiya was delivered via an emergency Caesarean section after only 24 weeks and five days after his mother Toshiko suffered hypertension. At 258 grams, he was even lighter than the previous record holder, another Japanese boy who weighed just 268 grams when he was born last year. That baby was discharged from a Tokyo hospital in February.

After Ryusuke was born, medical staff kept him in the hospital's neonatal intensive care unit. Nearly seven months later, he now weighs over three kilograms.

This picture taken on October 5, 2018 and released by Nagano Children's Hospital on Friday, April 19, 2019 shows Ryusuke Sekiya being treated at the hospital in Azumino in Japan's Nagano Prefecture. [Photo: AFP/Nagano Children's Hospital]

"When he was born, he was so small, and it seemed as if he would break with a touch. I was so worried," his mother Toshiko said. "Now he drinks milk. We can give him a bath. I am happy that I can see him growing."

The smallest surviving girl was born in Germany in 2015 weighing 252 grams, according to a registry put together by the University of Iowa of the world's tiniest surviving babies. The survival rate for tiny babies is substantially lower for boys than for girls.

(Story includes material sourced from AFP.)