A TEENAGER’S 18th birthday celebration today will be more special than most — as it is a day her family thought they would never see.

Born three months early and weighing only 1lb 12oz, Lauren McGovern shocked staff at Queen’s Park Hospital when she survived.

Mum Joanne went into labour 15 weeks early after being admitted into hospital for bed rest, and Lauren was rushed in to the special care baby unit.

Doctors told Joanne and husband Shaun that her tiny six-inch body may not survive the trauma, but she soon demonstrated her fighting spirit by removing the ventilator from her mouth at only four days old, and breathing without any assistance.

Dad Shaun, 43, said: “She was a little marvel then and a big marvel now.

“To say she was 1lb 12 oz and six inches long, you’d never think she was the same girl now.

“She’s 5ft 6in, slender and stunning.

“She’s a really happy-go-lucky girl, and I can’t praise her enough.

“She fought as a baby and was very special, but she’s even more special to us now.”

Shaun said that thanks to the excellent work of medical staff they had enjoyed ‘18 healthy years with Lauren’.

He said: “As you get older you appreciate the fact that you could have lost your little baby, and there’s not a day goes by that we don’t tell her how special she is.”

Lauren, of Hawkshaw Bank Road, Lammack, Blackburn, was kept in hospital for three months, but allowed to go home earlier than her original due date of May 2 after doing so well.

After attending Sacred Heart Primary School and St Bedes High School, she is currently on an NVQ placement at Longshaw Nursery School, Blackburn, and hopes to become a nursery teacher.

She said: “I’ve always known I was a special baby and I suppose I have been spoilt a bit over the years because of it.

“I feel very, very lucky to have had no problems at all.

“I’ve been completely normal and at the same stage as all my friends.

“When I was younger my mum and dad would take me to see the nurses who cared for me as a baby and it was really strange to meet them, but they all remembered me.”

To celebrate the milestone birthday, Lauren has arranged a big party at home for friends and family today.

The world’s smallest known surviving baby was Rumaisa Rahman who weighed just 8.6 ounces when she was born 14 weeks early in Chicago in 2004.