“My Child is Too Small. When Will I Take Her Home?”
— Sunita’s Story, In Her Own Words
My name is Sunita. I’m married to Akash. He works as a vegetable vendor.
That’s my life. That’s our life.

And three weeks ago, everything changed. When She Came Too Early
I had a premature delivery. It was about 21 weeks when things went wrong. The doctors said my baby needed to come out. Now. Before it was time.
I didn’t understand what that meant. All I knew was: my baby was coming, and she was too small.
When they placed her on the table, I remember thinking:
“That’s not a baby. That’s not possible. That’s too tiny to be real.”
But she was real. And she weighed just 1 kilogram.
Do you know what 1 kilogram feels like?
It’s the weight of a bag of flour. My daughter weighed as much as a bag of flour.

The First Problem: She Couldn’t Eat
Even before the infection, there was something else wrong. My baby couldn’t digest milk.
Whenever we tried to feed her—breast milk, formula, anything—she would vomit.