A short, amazing story

State's shortest mom gives birth to baby girl

YouNewsTV™Story Published: Apr 26, 2007 at 7:35 PM PDT

Story Updated: Apr 26, 2007 at 7:35 PM PDT
By KOMO Staff
Christianne Ray, who stands 2'9'' tall, set a state record when she gave birth to a baby girl on Tuesday.

Ray gave birth to Kyrsten Elise by cesarean section at the University of Washington Medical Center.

Baby Kyrsten was born 14 inches long and weighed 4 pounds and 8 ounces. It took quite a team of surgeons, doctors and nurses to bring her into the world.

And little Kyrsten faces a tough road ahead. Her many health issues put her in the neo-natal intensive care unit, and it will be many weeks before she can go home.

It's already been a long journey for Christianne. Doctors didn't know whether she would be able to carry a baby at first.

"'Cause they thought the baby was going to press on her lungs and she wasn't going to be able to breathe and neither was the baby or something," said her fiance, Jeremy Bowden. "They didn't want that happening, so we've proved them wrong about a lot of the stuff."

Once she became pregnant, she had to make weekly trips from Puyallup to Seattle to see specialists.

Christianne, who weighed 80 pounds, gained 30 more with her pregnancy. She couldn't make it up the stairs anymore and needed Bowden, who happens to be 6'4'', to carry her up.

Cristianne and her family believe she will be the smallest woman in Washington state to give birth.

We did some research of our own and found several women in history that were listed as the smallest mothers in the world. One of those women, Dolletta Boykin, was 28 inches tall and gave birth to two children back in the late 1880s.


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