A ‘miracle baby’ in China that survived despite being born at just 23 weeks has managed to live through her first week of care. 
 
 The tiny baby girl, who is now eight days old, was born last week in Chongqing, southwest China, after doctors performed an emergency operation to correct a problem with her mother’s cervix. 
 
 Before the operation, doctors warned the child’s parents that the baby would be born severely premature and would have next to no chance of survival. 
 
 Yet despite the doctor’s bleak forebodings, the baby lived through the operation. Chief of Paediatrics at the Chongqing Southwest Hospital said that the fact the baby survived a “spontaneous abortion” was very rare, as it is almost impossible for a baby to live through something like this. 
 
 The baby, who weighs just 660 grams and measures 28 cm, was taken straight to an incubator after the operation and is currently receiving around the clock care. 
 
 Due to the baby being born so early, medical staff have said that the baby’s organs and veins have are yet to fully develop and this has caused some complications in giving the baby girl the correct medication and nutrients. 
 
 The ‘miracle baby girl’ has been named ‘chopstick girl’ by local Chinese media because she is the same height as she is the same height as a chopstick. ||||| A newborn baby boy lodged in a sewage pipe directly beneath a toilet has been rescued by firefighters in eastern China. 
 
 Suggestions that the child had been dumped have been revised after it emerged that the 22-year-old unmarried mother of the baby was the one who raised the alarm. 
 
 According to a police source in Jinhua, in the eastern province of Zhejiang, the woman gave birth unexpectedly when she went to the lavatory on Saturday, and the newborn fell into the squat toilet. 
 
 Upset but alive, the baby recovers in hospital 
 
 The mother, who had hidden her pregnancy, telephoned her landlord, claiming she heard "weird noises" in the pipe, and the proprietor called police after spotting the infant. 
 
 Firefighters had to remove the pipe, reported to be 10cm (three inches) in diameter, and take it to a nearby hospital, where doctors carefully cut around it to rescue the baby inside. 
 
 They spent nearly an hour taking the tube apart piece by piece with pliers and saws and finally recovered the 5lb (2.3kg) boy, whose placenta was still attached. 
 
 From the time he was found until when he was taken out, the child - named Baby 59 from the number of his hospital incubator - was stuck in the tube for two to three hours, according to the policeman who declined to be named. 
 
 "The woman was on the scene during the entire rescue process ... and admitted (she was the mother) when we asked her," he said, adding they were still looking for the boy's father. 
 
 "We need further investigations to find out if she had any malicious intentions" before deciding whether the mother would be charged, he added. 
 
 According to the officer: "The baby is very healthy now and can be released from the hospital." 
 
 But the mother was in a serious condition due to complications from the delivery, he added. 
 
 Video footage of the rescue was broadcast nationally overnight before details of the unexpected birth emerged. 
 
 The news triggered hundreds of thousands of comments on China's hugely popular Weibo service, which is similar to Twitter, with users expressing good wishes for the baby. 
 
 One user, If-Free, said watching the rescue left her distraught. 
 
 "Seeing the little one wriggling and groaning as the pipe was torn apart bit by bit wrings my heart ... You've lived through the hardest moment in your life and your future will definitely be smooth," she said. 
 
 There are frequent reports in Chinese media of babies being abandoned, often shortly after birth. 
 
 The problem is attributed to factors such as young mothers unaware they were pregnant, the birth of an unwanted girl in a society which puts greater value on boys or China's strict family planning rules.
– They call her "chopstick girl," which provides a sense of her size: all of 11 inches long and weighing just 23 ounces. The Independent reports that a girl in southwest China has survived after being born last week at just 23 weeks. She came along after doctors had to perform an emergency procedure on the mother's cervix, which triggered what the lead pediatrician at Chongqing Southwest Hospital called a "spontaneous abortion" (though most definitions seem to frame "spontaneous abortions" as occurring before the 20th week). Shanghaiist reports the 24-year-old mother-to-be was experiencing complications from placenta previa, in which the placenta obscures part or all of the opening of the cervix. Doctors had told the parents the procedure would trigger the baby's birth and gave the infant almost zero chance of survival. But she remains on 24-hour care in an incubator. One complication: She's so young and tiny that her veins are not yet fully developed, making it trickier to provide her with nutrients. Xinhua has photos. (Click to read about a Canadian mom who gave birth in the US and got a bill of nearly $1 million.)