Baby Girl Born ‘Extremely Preterm’ at 27 Weeks. After Having a 70 to 80 Percent Chance at Survival, She’s Now ‘Thriving’

Aurora Britton was just 27 weeks old when she entered the world.

Now 7 months old, the baby girl was born “extremely preterm” at Akron Summa Hospital. Her mother, Casey Britton, later spoke with The Richland Source, opening up about the frightening and emotional months that followed Aurora’s early arrival.

“She was born extremely preterm,” Britton said, explaining that Aurora arrived at 27 weeks of gestation. Just two weeks earlier, Britton had been diagnosed with severe pre-eclampsia and ultimately underwent an emergency cesarean section.

When Aurora was born, she weighed 2 pounds, 10 ounces. As Britton recovered from surgery, her newborn daughter was rushed to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at Akron Children’s Hospital.

“She had the ventilator. She was intubated, she was on a CPAP machine. She had blood transfusions,” Britton recalled. “You name it, she had it.”

Doctors told Britton at the time that her daughter had only a 70 to 80 percent chance of survival.

“It was so hard because she was separated from me,” she said. “We were faced with, ‘Is she even gonna make it through today? Is she going to make it through tomorrow?’”

After two months in the NICU, Aurora was transferred to OhioHealth Mansfield Hospital’s Special Care Nursery, where she stayed for another 10 days. It was there that Britton noticed a turning point.

“She started thriving within days of being here,” Britton said. “Starting to eat more, needing less oxygen, needing less feeding tube. It was just amazing to see.”

Being closer to home allowed Britton to spend significantly more time with her daughter, including overnight stays at the hospital.

“[The nurses] had to force me [to leave],” she said. “They’re like, ‘Go home and sleep in your own bed for a couple hours. She’ll be OK.’”

Reflecting on the journey, Britton admitted that learning to accept help was one of the hardest lessons.

“As somebody who’s always used to helping everybody else, it was so difficult to try to accept the help when I needed it,” she said. “But that’s what the village is for.”