A series of photographs showing Rosie Peck as a baby. The top left image shows her at eight days old, next to a 7cm tall teddy. Photo: Supplied
Rosie Peck could once fit in the palm of her Dad's hand and only just survived her first few months, but she's now a teacher, a mum and part of a groundbreaking study into the lives of tiny premature babies.
Born at just 500 grams, she was one of the two smallest babies in a University of Otago study tracking the lives of very low weight, premature infants born in 1986.
It found that though significantly premature babies could face extra health difficulties, most thrived as adults.
Peck thought there was something special at play - as well as luck and medical expertise.
"I just think there is a drive and determination about children like that to defy the odds, to beat their odds and to really carry on when facing such adversity at the beginning of their lives," she said.
Her parents were shocked when she was born at just 26 weeks. She was the same length as a ballpoint pen.
At one point she nearly died. The team was struggling to insert a breathing tube when neonatal paediatrician Brian Darlow came in and got it to work, she said.
Now an emeritis professor, he headed the New Zealand Very Low Birthweight study which published its latest review in the New Zealand Medical Journal on Friday.
Peck wrote to him when she was 21 to say she was one of the babies in the study and to thank him for all he had done.
She had learnt a lot being part of it, she said.
"I have a much deeper appreciation of the fight we faced as wee people and the importance of the people around us who had the knowledge to help us to thrive," she said.
All the babies in the study were between eight and 16 weeks premature and weighed 1.5 kilograms (3.3 pounds) or less.
The study had caught up with them periodically and they were last physically examined in 2016, when they were about 28.
Rosie Peck and her family. Photo: Supplied
Darlow and his team had reviewed and published that data as they prepared to see the "babies" again.
The majority were living healthy, productive lives "similar to their term-born peers", the study found.
"Although there are some who have quite severe disabilities, they are a small minority and the vast majority of our cohort are doing very well. They are living healthy, normal lives, the same as any one else," Darlow said.
"What we measured, in terms of medical things, everything is really in the normal range for age but if you take the average for the group, its slightly below the average for the term-born control."
There were some conditions that the prem babies were more prone to and that was why, even as adults, doctors should ask whether their patients were born signficantly prematurely, he said.
"Somebody aged 40 comes in with lung disease for instance, it's really important that the GP knows that this person was born very prematurely or a very low birthweight because immediately that is a red flag ... they may have something going on in their lungs," he said.
Darlow said there were signs in 2016 that the group was physiologically ageing faster than the control group, with markers such as lung function and blood pressure. It would be part of the next work to see how that was tracking.
When the babies were born in the 1980s, 20 percent did not survive long enough to go home. That figure had dropped to about 10 percent and babies were able to survive younger, he said.
Rosie Peck said she faced some health challenges growing up, and had operations as a child, but was mostly healthy, going to school and university.
Her niece was born premature and she saw the same fighting spirit in her.
It was good to know the study would help others like her in the future, she said.
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