Valley’s Smallest Newborn Turns 1 : Littlest Champ Beats the Odds

Weighing in at 8 pounds, 14 ounces and looking just a bit smaller than her doll, Claudia Felix, one of the smallest babies anywhere to survive, was proclaimed by her doctors to be their biggest success.

Claudia, who today celebrates her first birthday, weighed only 18 1/2 ounces at birth. Two days later, her weight had dropped to 13 ounces, just 3 ounces more than the smallest infant known to have survived, according to the 1985 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records.

But one year later, her doctors at Valley Presbyterian Hospital in Van Nuys, where she was born, are happy with her development, especially her recent weight gain. Since July 9 Claudia has put on six ounces.

“That’s quite an accomplishment,” said Dr. Anne Kwun. “She had real difficulties in the first 10 months, but we are starting to see weight gain now.”

Doctors who specialize in newborns said Claudia is the smallest baby to survive at any San Fernando Valley hospital.

Claudia, the daughter of Ignacio and Maria Felix of North Hollywood, suffers from respiratory problems partly because her lungs were not fully developed at birth. She was born 14 weeks prematurely and still must receive oxygen through a small tube in her nose.

A normal 1-year-old weighs about 22 pounds--2 1/2 times Claudia’s weight. She is like a newborn baby in size but developmentally she is like a 6- or 7-month-old, Kwun said. She cannot yet crawl or walk.

If her lung condition improves, Kwun said her growth rate should pick up, but it will be about two more years before she catches up to the normal weight and size for a baby of her age.

“She is very alert now and is grabbing and holding on to things,” Kwun said. “She is now holding her bottle.”

And, during a surprise birthday party for her Friday at the hospital, Claudia, like all 1-year-olds, had cake icing smeared around her tiny mouth.