12 ounce preemie goes home for the first time from Maryland NICU

Weighed the equivalent of three sticks of butter at birth

Ariana Sophia Cruz-Gutierrez’s birth was induced in March, and she weighed 350 grams or 12 ounces, equivalent to three sticks of butter. She went home last Thursday. She is the smallest surviving premature infant born at Anne Arundel Medical Center’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit

Last Thursday at noon, Ariana Sophia Cruz-Gutierrez was at last ready to go home for the first time, tiny at 4 pounds, 15 ounces, but by all outward appearances healthy.

Dr. Suzanne Rindfleisch, director of the NICU, told the Capital Gazette’s Wendi Winters that Ariana “was our smallest survivor.” Dr. Rindfleisch, who’s been at the hospital for 24 years, went on to tell Winters.

“She was 12 ounces and dropped to 8 ounces. It was a long and difficult course for her, but she has a bright future ahead. Being at 24 weeks gestation, all the issues of a premature birth were there with the placement of tubes and monitors. She had transfusions and intubations. Her head sonogram was normal, though. And her parents were by her side all these months.”

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