Set of Septuplets Born in D.C.
July 13 -- Septuplets born late Thursday at a Washington hospital — the first set ever on the East Coast — are in critical condition, and six need ventilators to help them breathe.
The five boys and two girls were born prematurely by Caesarean section between 11:25 p.m. and 11:28 p.m. Thursday night at Georgetown University Hospital.
The parents have chosen to remain anonymous, but at a news conference this morning, doctors said the mother, who had received fertility treatments, remains in good condition and is resting.
The mother finally saw her babies in person today, after only seeing pictures of the children taken by hospital staff at first.
Each child weighed around 2 pounds at birth, a critically low weight. They were in their seventh month of gestation.
At first, all seven babies needed help breathing, and now only one is able to breathe entirely on its own, doctors said. Another baby was being treated for high blood pressure.
Doctors stressed that the septuplets' condition remained critical. "We'll have to take one day at a time," Dr. Craig Winkel said.
There are only two other sets of surviving septuplets in theworld, one delivered in 1998 by a woman in Saudi Arabia and theother born in 1997 in Iowa.
'SWAT' Teams on the Scene
The seven siblings are all in the hospital's neonatal intensive care unit, and no outsiders will be allowed in the unit for four to five days. The babies will remain hospitalized for several weeks, doctors said.
The parents have selected names for the babies, but they were not released.
There were as many as 25 support people on hand for the delivery, including three obstetricians, 11 nurses, and one clinical technician. More staff was on hand in the neonatal intensive care unit, just steps from the delivery room. Each baby was assigned what the hospital calls a "medical SWAT team," with six medical professionals, including a neonatologist and a respiratory therapist.
The mother's physician referred her to Georgetown University Hospital in mid-June, the doctors said, because her case was so complicated. In the weeks leading up to the births, Winkel said, medical personnel engaged in "dress rehearsals" to practice delivering the seven babies.
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