By Miranda La Rose Wednesday, March 6 2013

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The 28-year-old mother of the country’s first sextuplets saw her three boys and three girls for the first time yesterday afternoon, more than 24 hours after they were delivered by Caesarian section at Mt Hope Women’s Hospital on Monday.

One of the six babies is breathing on her own.

“One of the babies, a girl, has been extubated during the course of (yesterday), meaning that the baby was taken off the ventilating supporting machine, but remains in the incubator,” chairman of the North Central Regional Health Authority Dr Shehenaz Mohammed told Newsday. All of the babies remain in incubators where they are being intravenously fed and medicated against infections.

Security is tight at the hospital to protect the fragile babies and the identities of their parents who are from Central Trinidad. Mohammed said measures have been put in place to prevent persons from trying to take their pictures using camera phones.

The first night for the babies, she said, was “comfortable.”

It was also “very good news” that one of the babies was breathing on her own.

“That is a part of the weaning process. We are very optimistic even though they are still very fragile,” she said.

There were four placentas in the womb, suggesting the woman had given birth to a set of triplets and three single babies, according to Mohammed. Pathology tests are to confirm this, she added.

The babies’ mother was doing so well she was allowed to see them for the first time since she gave birth, according to lead consultant obstetrician, Dr Bharat Bassaw.

“She is out of the woods,” Bassaw told .

He said he had given approval yesterday morning for the mother to be taken up from the recovery room to see the babies who are in incubators in at the Neo-Natal Intensive Care Unit. The father of the babies saw them on Monday.

Only the parents of the sextuplets will be allowed to visit them, and under strict sanitation regulations to prevent infections since premature babies are prone to infections.

Mohammed said the mother and hospital administrators were very concerned about wrong information and photographs, purporting to be that of the babies, circulating on the internet.

A picture of babies sharing a ventilator has been posted online and claims have been made that they are the sextuplets.

“The picture circulating,” Mohammed said, “shows babies sharing ventilators. Our babies have their own ventilators. They are not sharing ventilators.”

Apart from the sextuplets, there are two other babies at the Neo-Natal Intensive Care Unit and all have their own equipment, Mohammed said.

“At the moment we have eight babies on their own ventilators. The babies are being closely monitored,” she said.

“We have beefed up security. People are trying to take pictures. The mother doesn’t want any of those things, and at all times we have to protect the patient.”

Newsday noted yesterday that security was checking the bags of visitors and patients entering the hospital.

Mohammed said they were trying to ensure as far as possible that no one entered the hospital with cameras, cellphone cameras, and other video recording devices.

Newsday was assured that no one can enter the area where the babies are with any cameras, recording devices, or even watches and jewelery.

“We are aware of the excitement the births have generated, but we are very concerned about confidentiality. We are determined to protect the identity of the parents from the visiting public until they themselves decide otherwise,” Mohammed said.

The mother, she said, was not confident about publicity at this stage and this must be respected.

It should be noted that the birth of the sextuplets was reported widely in the region as they are not only the first for Trinidad and Tobago, but the first in the Caribbean.

And, if online sources on multiple births are correct, the Central mother may have broken the record for the longest sextuplets pregnancy at between 30 to 31 weeks.

Based on on-line encyclopaedia Wikipedia’s data on sextuplets, the Central mother would have broken the 1997 record in which the Thompson sextuplets, born in the United States, were gestated during a 29-week, six-days pregnancy. The American sextuplets were born to Jacqueline and Linden Thompson on May 8, 1997 in Washington, DC. One of the children, a girl, was stillborn. The five survivors are four girls and one boy. (See page 8)

The Central mother had been in the care of the women’s hospital at Mt Hope since she was seven weeks pregnant. She was warded at the hospital in January when she was under “27 weeks of gestation.” Bassaw said they hoped to take the mother to just over 32 weeks, which would have been on March 14. Due to breathing problems she developed and the rapid deterioration of her health, he took the decision to deliver the babies on March 4.

A 60-member team of local doctors and nurses took part in the Caesarian section and post-care of the babies at the Mt Hope hospital.

The mother had undergone a series of fertility drugs at a private doctor to increase her chances of becoming pregnant. The drug used was Clomid (Clomiphene citrate) and according to the online website Fertility Today, it is one of the most common fertility medications used to regulate or induce ovulation.

Wikipedia added the Trinidad births to its list, after the last two recorded sextuplets births which took place last year. In April 2012, a couple in the United States (US) had sextuplets, and a month later a couple in Thailand had sextuplets too. All of the sextuplets in Trinidad, the US and Thailand were three boys and three girls.

Also, TT’s six famous babies would now be the 186th recorded sextuplets birth in the world, according to another source, Facts About Multiples; World Sextuplets List - an encyclopaedia of multiple births.





Medical team for 6 babies



(1) North Central Regional Health Authority (NCRHA) chairman, Dr Shehenaz Mohammed

(2) NCRHA Chief Executive Officer Dr Rodney Ramroop

(3) Lead Consultant Obstetrician, Dr Bharat Bassaw

(4) Medical Chief-of-Staff of the Mt Hope Women’s Hospital (MHWH), Dr Esau Joseph

(5) Medical Chief-of-Staff of the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex, Dr Andy Bhagwandass

(6) Consultant Paedriatrician, Dr Kamini Lutchman

(7) Consultant Paediatrician, Dr Natalie Dick

(8) Consultant Paediatrician, Dr Manoj Potdar

(9) Anaesthetist, Dr Dana Ramdin

(10) Nurse-in-charge of the Maternity Operating Theatre, Cathy Cadogan

(11) Nursing Administrator of MHWH, Sister Claudette Fraser Udika

(12) Hospital Administrator, MHWH, Anne Marie Eli

(13) Head of Security, MHWH,