12-Ounce Baby, Taken From Womb to Save Mother, Fights On : Birth: 10-inch girl is smallest ever born at Anaheim’s Martin Luther Hospital. Odds against her survival are great.

Born after only 24 weeks of gestation, a 12-ounce baby was struggling to survive Wednesday evening, two days after she was removed from the womb to save her mother’s life.

At 10 inches, the purplish body of Sheyanne Danielle Welch is barely as big as a nurse’s hand. Helped by a respirator, the baby’s tiny chest and stomach heave as she breathes. A miniature version of the typical infant, she yawns, shakes her arms, and kicks--movement parents normally feel through the mother’s stomach.

“She’s a tiny, tiny person,” said the proud father, Jim Welch of Anaheim, whose wife, Robin, was in stable condition in the intensive care unit Wednesday night. “She’s gorgeous.”

Sheyanne is the smallest baby ever born at Anaheim’s Martin Luther Hospital since its 10-bed neonatal intensive care unit opened 13 years ago. As many as 600 babies under 500 grams--Sheyanne weighs only 355--are born annually in California but very few of them survive.

“We give parents no chance of the baby living,” said Dr. Ragnar Amlie, a neonatologist at Children’s Hospital of Orange County, noting that earlier this year he treated a 420-gram infant who died after six days. “What is rare is if they first survive and if they do well.”

The smallest surviving infant on record was a 10-ounce baby born in England in 1938.

The latest statistics show a 10% survival rate for babies born after 24 weeks in the womb weighing under 600 grams, said Sheyanne’s doctor, Gloria Morales, an associate neonatologist at Martin Luther.

“I was surprised when the baby came out crying,” Morales said, adding that Sheyanne is a special case because she is underweight as well as premature.

Dr. Betty Bernard, an associate professor of pediatrics at USC who specializes in premature births, said that even if Sheyanne does survive, she may suffer significant brain damage.

But so far, Morales said, Sheyanne is in good health. Ultrasounds show no brain damage, her vital signs are stable and her internal organs appear typical for her age. Unless she needs surgery, Martin Luther is equipped to handle her care, which a nursing supervisor said would cost “thousands a day.”

“She’s such a spunky little fighter,” said nurse Brook Bray, a 17-year veteran of neonatology. “I think she’s got a really good chance.

“She moves all her extremities all over,” Bray said, recalling that Sheyanne had her legs crossed earlier Wednesday afternoon. “She’s very active.”

Morales agreed that Sheyanne is a “fighter,” and said that “every day the baby is alive her chances are better.”

Lying in a bubble kept at 98.6 degrees to simulate the womb, Sheyanne is covered with plastic to keep her warm. She wears a blue and pink cotton knit cap to protect her head and keep the bright light from her eyes, which are still covered by thin, transparent lids. A diaper folded in half is her bed; a cotton ball between her tiny legs catches her urine.

Every few hours, Bray or another nurse reaches through one of the incubator’s six portholes to change the diaper and remove secretions that build up in her lungs. Sugar-water and protein flow through the technical equivalent of an umbilical cord, and vital signs are constantly monitored, Bray said.

Sheyanne’s mother, who is 37, suffered from “Hellp syndrome,” in which pregnancy causes hypertension, elevated liver enzymes and low platelet levels, Morales said. This was Robin Welch’s third pregnancy: her other daughters, 8-year-old Kassandra and 22-month-old Ashleigh, were carried to term and born at 7 pounds, 6 ounces, and 8 pounds, seven ounces, respectively.

Robin Welch went to her doctor Monday morning with pains in her rib cage. By 6 p.m., obstetrician John Yee told Jim Welch his wife probably would bleed to death if the baby was not removed.

Upon seeing the size of Sheyanne’s body, the doctor “turned around and indicated it doesn’t look good,” said Jim Welch, who was in the delivery room at the time.

“I just told (the doctors) to put it in God’s hands and see what happens,” said Welch, an insurance salesman who says he is not particularly religious. “You do your job and let God do his. If she’s healthy, she’s healthy. If not, we’ll deal with it.”