--- description: World Prematurity Day is Nov. 17 title: World Prematurity Day: The Doctor Who 'Invented' Preemies image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6fa280d76a8945f8/6988705fbc6cfc995e3da4f6/preemies.jpeg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [History](/section/history/) ## History Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [health](/tag/health/) ## health Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # Meet the Doctor Who 'Invented the Premature Baby'  by [Lily Rothman](/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Nov 17, 2015 3:00 PM CUT  Incubators for premature infants at Bonnaire Hospital in Paris, 1928 Incubators for premature infants at Bonnaire Hospital in Paris, 1928ullstein bild / Getty Images  by [Lily Rothman](/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Nov 17, 2015 3:00 PM CUT Today, as World Prematurity Day is observed on Nov. 17, things are better than ever for premature babies. In fact, as the medical director of the March of Dimes [explained to TIME in a cover story](http://time.com/108708/the-cutting-edge-medicine-saving-preemies/ "undefined") last year about the cutting-edge science used to save preemies, “Every decade since the 1960s, the age of viability \[at which a baby can survive outside the womb\] has been reduced by a week.” Before 1960, however, things were different. Up until the early 20th century, the concept of a premature baby didn’t even really exist, as there was little that doctors could do for them. Their death was assumed, so special medical research would have seemed like a low priority. Those who did survive were often dismissed as weaklings. Then came Arvo Ylppö. The Finnish doctor—who had been born prematurely himself, [according](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2675334/ "undefined") to the U.S. National Library of Medicine—made premature babies his specialty. “As early as 1913 came a study of jaundice from blood destruction, which sometimes afflicts the newborn. By 1917 Ylppö had passed a tube into his own stomach and pumped oxygen in to prove that the life-essential gas could be given by this route (he was the first to apply this technique to “preemies”),” TIME [noted when he turned 70 in 1957](http://time.com/vault/issue/1957-11-11/page/58/ "undefined"). “Then came detailed studies of the physiology of preemies (showing just what development handicaps they suffered), and other vital topics, such as the effects of a mother’s illnesses on her unborn child, and what substances, from hormones to antibodies, pass through the placenta from mother to child.” “It is often stated that Arvo Ylppö invented the premature baby,” Clement Smith, a Harvard researcher in newborn respiration, was quoted saying. “I doubt this, but it certainly was fortunate for premature infants that Arvo Ylppö was invented.” **_Read TIME’s 2014 cover story about how far preemie care has come:_**[ Saving Preemies](http://time.com/108708/the-cutting-edge-medicine-saving-preemies/ "undefined") ### What the Battle to Save Preemies Looked Like 75 Years Ago  Caption from LIFE. "Incubator Rooms' save premature babies' lives." Hansel Mieth—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Caption from LIFE. "Seven-months baby gets back massage to belch." Hansel Mieth—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Caption from LIFE. "Ten-minute-old baby swathed in cotton batting." Hansel Mieth—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Caption from LIFE. "The Hess bed is the premature baby's equivalent of an oxygen tent. Weak babies are placed in this container, given pure air and oxygen which facilitates breathing." Hansel Mieth—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Photo from story on premature babies, 1939. Hansel Mieth—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Caption from LIFE. "Three-pound babies are fed by placing rubber tube down their throats, pouring milk through a funnel into the tube. Such feeding conserves the baby's strength." Hansel Mieth—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Caption from LIFE. "A medicine dropper is used to feed babies who are too weak to suck a nipple." Hansel Mieth—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Caption from LIFE. "Combination bottle-dropper with both a bulb and a nipple teaches baby to nurse." Hansel Mieth—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Caption from LIFE. "Fully developed, the premature babies drink from regular bottles containing either mother's milk or formula milk. Nurses always wear masks over mouth and nose." Hansel Mieth—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Photo from story on premature babies, 1939. Hansel Mieth—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Nurse with premature baby, Boston, 1939. Hansel Mieth—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Nurse with premature baby, Boston, 1939. Hansel Mieth—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Photo from story on premature babies, 1939. Hansel Mieth—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Photo from story on premature babies, 1939. Hansel Mieth—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Caption from LIFE. "Mothers of premature babies are never allowed inside the nursery, can spend one hour a day fondly gazing at their infants in their cots through a glass partition." Hansel Mieth—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Photo from story on premature babies, 1939. Hansel Mieth—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images   LIFE magazine, March 13, 1939. LIFE  LIFE magazine, March 13, 1939. LIFE  LIFE magazine, March 13, 1939. 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