OUR LITTLE FIGHTER IS HOME!

Not only was baby Levin premature but he’s also had to fight Covid-19

- MARELIZE GRBICH

THE tiny baby is peacefully asleep in his mother’s arms, blissfully unaware of all the tears shed over him in his short life.

Levin Brown is perfect, from his little nose to his dimpled chin and long dark lashes.

Aged just two months, Levin has been through a lot. Not only was he born premature, weighing less than a kilogram at birth, he’s also battled Covid-19.

And now, having spent his first 67 days in hospital, he’s finally home.

“He’s our little fighter,” says proud dad Vernon Brown (39), a policeman from Paarl in the Western Cape.

“He’s just such a pleasure – he doesn’t fuss. He doesn’t give us any trouble at all. He knows he belongs here.”

Mom Lucinda (33) smiles down at her son. “Some people say he’ll probably be president one day,” she says. “Or maybe a celebrity.”

Until now, smiles and dreams for her youngest child haven’t come easily.

When Levin was born at 27 weeks on 25 May, doctors couldn’t tell whether he’d survive the complications of being premature. His heart was the size of a walnut, his little lungs no bigger than a matchbox.

Then, when he tested positive for the coronavirus a week later, his future seemed even more precarious.

Lucinda was admitted to hospital four days before Levin’s birth because she’d started bleeding and was losing amniotic fluid. She had no Covid-19 symptoms but a routine test three days later was positive for the virus.

“It was a shock to get the test results,” Lucinda says. She has no idea where she contracted the virus because as far as she knows, no one she’d been in contact with had it.