Noteworthy professional news.

When a 359-g baby girl was born at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics in 1994, the parents wondered whether other infants that small had survived in other hospitals. Their question led to an attempt to collect reports of survivors with birth weights of less than 400 g from the medical literature and lay media and the Tiniest Babies Registry was born. To date, the registry has collected information on 111 babies with birth weights less than 400 g, who survived to hospital discharge. Cases of “micropremies” go all the way back to 1936, and the number of infants who survive each year has increased since the 1990s. Birth weights ranged from 260 to 397 g and reported gestational ages are from 21 to 34 weeks. All but 2 of the infants are small for gestational age. In keeping with other statistics about the “female survival advantage” in preterm infants, most of the tiny babies (75%) are female. At the Tiniest Babies Web site (http://www. medicine.uiowa.edu/tiniestbabies/), a parent or health care provider can submit information for a new listing of a tiny baby or add growth and development data to an existing listing. The list of tiny babies can be viewed by birth weight or date of birth, and information also includes city and country of birth. The information on long-term functional and health outcomes of the patients in the registry is limited, but most of the patients have ongoing health and learning concerns. The purpose of the Tiniest Babies registry is to provide a central repository of information for use by health care professionals and parents who are faced with decisions about the management of pregnancies with severe fetal growth restriction and postnatal management of severely undergrown infants of viable gestational age.