First born Waco baby of 2019 is “a miracle”

WACO, Texas – A miracle took place on New Year’s Day in Waco at Baylor Scott & White Medical Center – Hillcrest.

Being the first baby born in the New Year, La’Zayuria Peel weighed only two pounds and ten ounces.

Her mother, Evette, gave birth at 27 weeks – almost three months before her due date.

“She’s doing an amazing job. It’s a blessing for her to be two pounds, and she’s very healthy. It’s a blessing,” Evette says. “She weighed at two pounds and ten ounces, now she is two pounds and six ounces.” 

La’Zayuria was the first baby born in Waco this year.

“And I wasn’t even trying to have her on New Year’s Day. I was trying to keep her in there, but I think that’s the reason why she wanted to come – she wants to be the first newborn baby. She wants to have eyes all on her. She’s a small little thing, but she really is smart,” Evette explains.

Evette’s water actually broke at 23 weeks, but they managed to hold off the birth for four weeks!

“Having a premature baby depends on how premature, and in the case we are talking about that mom was actually in the hospital for several weeks and she improved the chances of survival traumatically by keeping the baby in,” explains Dr. Darrell Wheeler, a Neonatologist at Baylor Scott and White Medical Center.

Dr. Wheeler says ten percent of the babies born in the United States are premature and 400 babies get admitted into the NICU in Waco each year. Not all of them are premature, but most of them are.

“Long term complications of being born at 23 or 28 weeks is that they have to have enough lung tissue to survive. That’s a challenge. If they can make it through that, then we worry about the gut and feeding, and growing,” Dr. Wheeler explains. “During all this time, the brain is developing at 23 or 27 weeks. The brain is very slick, kind of like their butt versus our brain, which has ridges. Their brain is developing and their developing their little ridges and neural pathways. It’s very important.”

After Evette had her first daughter premature, she says it’s still a very scary experience having her second early.

“I cry like a little baby because I hate leaving her. I keep thinking that maybe she is going to forget about me. But I call up here everyday when I do leave, so I know she is safe in here. So I don’t really worry as much. At first I was terrified, I was worried a lot, but now it’s okay,” Evette explains.

But she knows La’Zayuria is in good hands here at the hospital.

“They are really good with her, you know, she loves them and I love them,” Evette says. “Just pray, have hope, have faith in God that everything will be okay.”

Dr. Wheeler says the reason why mothers deliver their babies early are a mystery.

“Most of the time we don’t know. Very few of them deliver because of an infection. So it’s very common to treat babies with antibiotics when they are first born, make sure there’s no infection, but the vast majority of premature babies – we don’t know why. And there is a lot of research being done by March of Dimes on pre-term labor and pre-term births.”

Evette and La’Zayuria are healthy and doing amazing. 

La’Zayuria does have to say in the NICU for another 10-12 weeks and Evette says her four-year-old daughter can’t wait to meet her baby sister.