Babies on the Brink
About one out of every nine babies in the United States is born prematurely. But cutting-edge technology is giving doctors the chance to save babies as tiny as 1 pound. For babies born after 30 weeks of gestation, the rate of survival is 95 percent and at 25 weeks it is slightly more than 50 percent. The survival rate plummets -- to about one out of 100 -- for babies born after only 22-23 weeks.
The miracle of saving the very smallest babies, those teetering on the brink of viability, comes with a price because as many as 80 to 90 percent suffer lasting disabilities. CNN's Eileen O'Connor takes a look at the dilemmas of premature birth in "Babies on the Brink."