Video: Newborn makes miraculous recovery after doctors said he didn't make it

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Monday, March 16, 2015
Kate Ogg and her husband David holding newborn son.
ktrk-Johnson & Johnson

For Kate and David Ogg of Australia, the arrival of twins in 2010 was a blessing after three years of trying to conceive. Then after a premature birth, they were told their first baby would not make it.

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While Kate was giving birth to twins, a boy and a girl, she and her husband "noticed the dynamic in the room was quite strange," she said in the YouTube video posted by Johnson & Johnson. The doctor then sat on the edge of the bed and told the parents that the boy, Jamie, didn't make it.

She held him close and asked her husband to get in the bed with her.

"I wanted as much body heat around this baby as possible. I moved his ear to my heart...and cried and cried," Kate said in the video.

"We told him that he had a sister...and that we had big plans for him," she recalled.

Kate says the baby boy then opened his eyes, grabbed his father's finger and held on. Stunned hospital staff then got to work, helping nurse the child into a full recovery, the Telegraph reports.

The miracle may be backed by scientific data. There are several studies pointing to the benefits of early skin-to-skin contact, especially for premature babies. 82 percent of US hospitals with NICUs now use the practice, known informally as kangaroo care.

The Ogg family is now using their story to help others. They've set up a Facebook page asking people to donate to the Miracle Babies Foundation, a group that supports premature and sick newborns. You can learn more by clicking here.