7 big advances in children’s health

One in 9 newborns in the U.S. is born prematurely, about 450,000 children a year. But thanks to medical research, the survival rate for preemies has improved dramatically over the last few decades.

Three-year-old Kingston McKinnon is one of those success stories. He was born at 23 weeks, weighing just 1 pound, 3.5 ounces. “There aren’t many of those babies who survive,” his mother Arica McKinnon told CBS News.

One of the biggest threats faced by a baby that small is Respiratory Distress Syndrome (RDS), which develops when a baby’s immature lungs are unable to produce enough of compound known as surfactant needed to help them breathe. The development in the 1980s of a way to supplement surfactant helped lead to a 41 percent decline in deaths from RDS.

“We were blessed to get that treatment for our son,” McKinnon said. Today, the proud mom says Kingston is doing “awesome” — he’s happy and healthy and shows little sign of his precarious start in life.

Next…