Under normal circumstances, the odds of survival for a baby born at 23 weeks are slim: Around 30 percent, according to some doctors. Just 15 percent, say others.

But under the circumstances in which Haiden Morgan was born — on a cruise ship more than 100 miles from land, with no obstetrician, no incubator and 14 hours to reach the nearest hospital? He had practically no chance.

“The doctors really tell us that he’s a miracle baby,” Haiden’s mother, Emily Morgan of Ogden, Utah, told The Washington Post. “It’s a miracle he’s here.”

She hadn’t expected to need a miracle when she, her husband and their 3-year-old daughter boarded a Royal Caribbean cruise in August. She was only five months pregnant at the time, and her doctor had approved the trip.

But on her second night at sea, amid the almost imperceptible motion of the waves and the hum of ship machinery, the contractions started.

Read the article “‘Miracle’ Premature Baby Born on Cruise Ship, Survives” on washingtonpost.com.