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Nurses Hold Graduation Ceremony For Premature Baby As He Leaves Hospital

Eleanor Ross

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Nurses Hold Graduation Ceremony For Premature Baby As He Leaves Hospital

Featured Image Credit: ABC News/Molli and Robert Potter

A baby born at 22 weeks was so small that his mum bought his outfit from Build A Bear to celebrate his "graduation" when he was discharged from the hospital.

Cullen Potter, now five months old, wore the black velvet gown and hat to celebrate being well enough to leave the University of South Alabama Children's and Women's Hospital in Mobile, Alabama.

"We were [at Build-A-Bear] with our older son and my wife (Molli) was looking and thought it would fit Cullen," Cullen's father, Robert Potter, told ABC news. "The hat was actually a little big."

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Baby Cullen is still extremely small, weighing just six pounds.

The hospital played along with the idea of the graduation, sounding graduation music along the corridors as little Cullen was held aloft as he 'graduated' from the intensive care unit.

The ICU said that it was normal for nurses and doctors to celebrate and send the babies off when they were discharged, but this was the first one who wore a cap and gown.

There are around 80 babies held in the intensive care unit at any one time.

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Baby Potter at 22 weeks and when he left the hospital. Credit: Molli and Robert Potter
Baby Potter at 22 weeks and when he left the hospital. Credit: Molli and Robert Potter

"Our families spend a lot of time here and we become family with each other," Renee Rogers, the NICU's nurse manager, told ABC news.

"When it's time to go home, it's emotional not just for the families but for the staff as well."

Cullen was originally given a two per cent chance to live after Robert Potter's wife was on bed rest for three and a half weeks. He recalls how they had to call 16 different hospitals in three states to find a hospital that would deliver him at under 24 weeks."

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Premature babies are known as preterm birth when they are delivered before 37 weeks.

Amillia Taylor is the most premature baby to have survived a preterm birth, born at less than 22 weeks.

Topics: Life News, Real, Parenting

Eleanor Ross
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