‘Miracle’ baby born less than 1lb, saved by AdventHealth for Children NICU team

Charlotte Peele weighed less than a pound when she was born – no more than a cup of coffee.

At precisely 350 grams, she’s one of the smallest surviving preemie babies that AdventHealth for Children has ever cared for – and one of the smallest in the world.

Born at just 25 weeks, Charlotte was admitted to the hospital’s Little Miracles Unit, a wing of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit where highly specialized teams care for the smallest babies of all.

“These are very delicate, very tiny babies who would have a small chance of survival if not for this team,” said Dr. Narendra Dereddy, NICU medical director.

For seven years in a row, the NICU at AdventHealth for Children has been ranked as one of the best in the nation by U.S. News and World Report.

In the Little Miracles Unit, care is even more intensive, caring for infants born as early as 22 weeks.

The unit is staffed by neonatologists, neonatal nurse practitioners and dedicated pharmacists, dietitians and nurses specially trained in intensive neonatal care, as well as AdventHealth for Women obstetricians, maternal-fetal medicine physicians and a rigorously trained delivery team.

Babies admitted to the unit are so little they require special incubators, ventilators and monitoring systems, and their rooms are light- and temperature-controlled. Families also have access to a milk bank.

Recognized as a Level 4 NICU by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the NICU at AdventHealth for Children has capacities that go beyond other health systems and can handle the most acute and complex medical cases, equipped with pediatric surgical specialists and a full range of respiratory and life support to care for premature and critically ill newborns.

For four and half months, it’s where Charlotte and her parents Mari and Greg Peele called home. And it’s the reason, they said, that she survived.

“We prayed a lot about the right place to go because we knew she was going to need a lot of help,” Mari Peele said. “We felt like we wound up in exactly the right place for her. You’re the reason we have our miracle.”

Since being discharged from the hospital, Charlotte’s grown a lot. She’s technically 5 months old and now weighs over 6 pounds, just big enough for newborn clothes.

“Our team got to be a part of Charlotte's success story and looking back on it makes me feel very proud, words can’t even describe how it feels,” said Dr. Rene Ruiz Nieves, an attending neonatologist with the Little Miracles Unit. “It reminds me why I went to school for this and why I became a neonatologist.”