Moment premature baby leaves intensive care after nearly 250 days to ‘guard of honour’ from staff

A family has shared the moment their daughter, who was born nearly four months early, was finally able to leave the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) after a 247-day stay.

Baby River was due to be born on 7 September 2023 but arrived in May when mother Shelby Rutledge’s water broke unexpectedly at only 22 weeks and four days pregnant.

At the time, doctors told Shelby there was a chance River would not survive if she were born so early.

After an initial 16-day stay in hospital, Shelby gave birth.

She was warned that she needed to expect River to remain in the NICU for up to a year, so decided to document her daughter’s progress.

After more than seven months in Oklahoma Children’s Hospital, the family was finally told that River was well enough to go home - and she left to a guard of honour in January.