Baby born weighing 9 oz. celebrates 1st birthday

NEW YORK (FOX5NY) - Beautiful baby Tamaya is happy and healthy and recently celebrated her 1st birthday at the Children's Hospital in Valhalla. However, her mother once feared this wonderful milestone would never happen. When she was born, she had a 20 percent chance of living. But one year later, she's alive and healthy.

She was born four months early and spent six months in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.
The director of the unit says that when she was born she was only 9.6 ounces. Initially, doctors weren’t sure she would survive.  

However, she gained eight times her weight by the time she left the hospital.

Doctors say high tech technology saved her life, but so did something as simple as breast milk. Her mother was unable to breast-feed so the hospital used donated milk.

She was exclusively breast milk fed from birth, which does a lot to improve immune function and prevent various illnesses.

Not only is Tamaya right on target for her age, but doctors say she may be advanced and will likely grow up to be a healthy adult.

To give you some perspective on how tiny she was when she was born, she was nine ounces. That's about the weight of two iPhones.

It's truly a miracle she survived. It wasn't that long ago that baby Tamaya weighed just under a pound and doctors didn't think she would make it.  Her survival is very encouraging for other parents dealing with similar struggles right now.