‘Extremely premature’ baby now living like any other four-year-old

WATCH: Born 14-weeks premature, Sadie, now four years old, had to outgrow lung problems from ventilating complications, but today she’s healthy.

TORONTO – To look at little Sadie Grant now, you would never know she came into this world fighting for her life.  Sadie was born 14 weeks premature with resulting lung problems.

“I had this feeling that something wasn’t right, and that it wasn’t going to be a full term pregnancy,” Jackie Grant, Sadie’s mother, said.

Admitted to Sunnybrook’s NICU, Sadie was under the care of nurse practitioner Wendy Moulsdale.

“She was born at 26 weeks and one day, so if you wanna think about it…what we would term extremely premature…Premature babies have very immature lungs and need a lot of support, and Sadie, in fact, needed us to help her quite a bit for about four or five weeks, initially on our most advanced ventilator.”

Despite being at risk for other complications, such as infections, heart troubles, and internal bleeding, Sadie was finally able to breathe on her own after weeks on a ventilator.

Sadie was able to go home four days before her natural due date, but she still needed oxygen support at home because of her chronic lung disease.

“The chronic lung disease from the effects of being intubated and the damage that it did to her lungs, that was probably our biggest struggle with Sadie,” said Jackie, Sadie’s mother.

“She showed herself from early on to be a real fighter and to really have a personality coming through,” Moulsdale said.

Today Sadie is just like any other four-year-old girl, she likes to paint and play with her dolly-Sweetpea.

“Sadie is like any other child in her preschool program. She is energetic; she’s reaching all of her milestones. You would never have known looking at her that she was born over three-months early,” Jackie said.