In Ukraine’s Volyn region, a baby girl named Zlata has been discharged from hospital after three months of intensive treatment and care. She was born prematurely at 31 weeks of pregnancy, weighing just 650 grams, the Volyn Regional Territorial Medical Association for the Protection of Motherhood and Childhood said.
Zlata was born on October 20 via an emergency caesarean section due to intrauterine growth restriction. After birth, she spent three weeks in a neonatal intensive care unit in critical condition. According to Tetiana Zahrebelna, head of the neonatal anaesthesiology and intensive care unit, the baby suffered from severe respiratory failure and required prolonged high-frequency mechanical ventilation as well as surfactant therapy. A multidisciplinary medical team was involved in her treatment.
After her condition stabilised, Zlata was transferred to the neonatology department on day 21 of life, weighing 860 grams, where she remained for another two months. Tetiana Koshii, head of the department, said the child developed bronchopulmonary dysplasia due to lung immaturity and therefore needed long-term oxygen therapy and specialised feeding.
Zlata now weighs 2,500 grams, feeds independently and is steadily gaining weight. She has returned home with her parents to the village of Smolyhiv in the Torchyn community. Her mother, Natalia Olishchuk, thanked the doctors who took part in saving her daughter’s life.
During the discharge ceremony, Iryna Horavska, the association’s director general, stressed that all prematurely born children require careful follow-up and rehabilitation and remain under medical supervision until the age of three.