BORN EARLY
Inspired by his own children, Quebec City photographer Red Methot created ‘Les Preemies,’ an exhibit to show the healthy later lives of kids and adults who were born earlier than 37 weeks
Meet Eva, born at 29 weeks — one of dozens of kids and adults profiled by a Quebec photographer out to capture the healthy later lives of preemies.
Although he knew his son would be premature and small, Red Methot was still shocked at the baby’s tiny size. The child was delivered at 29 weeks and weighed about two pounds.
The infant needed a respirator for the first month and spent eight weeks in the neonatal intensive care unit.
Now the boy is 5, a kindergarten student. “He’s back on the right track,” said Methot, a Quebec City resident. “There are no signs he was premature.”
The experiences of his son and then his daughter, born at 33 weeks, gave Methot the idea for his now-and-then photograph collection, “Les Preemies.” It consists of more than three dozen photos of children and a few adults holding framed black-and-white pictures of the children as tiny newborns, many hooked up with wires and tubes in incubators.
Methot, a biologist who is studying photography, wanted to create a message of hope. “I thought, ‘What kind of photos would I have liked to see when I was in the situation?’ It was simple — to see that the children were OK.”
His exhibit was displayed at Montreal’s LaSalle College on World Prematurity Day, Nov. 17. Worldwide, an estimated15 million babies every year are born prematurely, before 37 weeks of pregnancy are completed. Pregnancy usually lasts 40 weeks from the date of a woman’s last menstrual period.
Prematurity is the leading cause of death in children under 5, according to the World Health Organization, and survivors may face lifetime disabilities, such as visual and hearing problems.
Methot found his subjects, all from Quebec, through word of mouth at first and then via a Facebook posting. They are not a representative sample of premature births, he said. He simply took photos of youngsters whose parents contacted him. He suspects parents of children with unhappy outcomes might not be so willing.
Two of the children he met did have respiratory problems and required oxygen. In one poignant photo, a young boy holds a picture of himself with his twin in the incubator. The twin didn’t live.
That’s the only really sad story, Methot said. “Most of the kids are doing great.”
“I thought, ‘What kind of photos would I have liked to see when I was in the situation?’ It was simple — to see that the children were OK.”
RED METHOT