Survival rate of premature babies born at 22 weeks close to zero: Sun Xueling

Bill amendment raises threshold for definition of stillbirth to 24 weeks of pregnancy, up from 22

- Theresa Tan

Only one baby here born extremely prematurely at 22 weeks in the past decade has survived after a slew of life-sustaining treatments and spending 166 days in hospital.

Minister of State for Home Affairs and Social and Family Development Sun Xueling mentioned this “miracle baby” at the second reading of the Stillbirths and Births (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill on Jan 9, adding that such cases are extremely rare.

Ms Sun did not name the child, but online checks found that she is Chelsea Kiew, whose chances of survival were described by her doctors as “close to zero” when she was born in 2018.

One of the two main amendments introduced in the Bill, which was passed in Parliament on Jan 9, is that the definition of stillbirth will refer to the death of a baby born after the 24th week of pregnancy. This is up from after the 22nd week now.

The move comes after doctors expressed concern that the threshold of 22 weeks of pregnancy may be misinterpreted as an indication of foetal viability, and may cause confusion among parents facing difficult and important decisions about medical interventions for their unborn child.

Ms Sun said that local medical and scientific evidence points to 24 weeks of pregnancy as the threshold for foetal viability, which refers to the ability of a baby born prematurely to survive outside the womb.

Reviews by the Ministry of Health in 2018 and 2022 involving local experts concluded that the survival rate of a premature baby born at 22 weeks is close to zero, while the foetal viability of babies born at 24 weeks is about 50 per cent.