By MIRANDA LA ROSE Sunday, March 10 2013

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Parents of the sextuplets born at Mt Hope Women's Hospital, om March 4, Petra Lee Foon and Kieron Cummings....

Petra Lee Foon, the mother of the sextuplets — three boys and three girls — born on March 4, slept in her own bed in her family home on Saturday night for the first time in one month and two weeks after she was warded at the Mount Hope Women’s Hospital.

Lee Foon was discharged on Friday from the women’s hospital and reportedly had a very good rest at home. However, she will have to commute to the hospital until the babies, who have all been named, are discharged from the facility.

Meanwhile, a family member of the Cummings told Sunday Newsday yesterday that the first born baby, a boy, who was reported critically ill on Wednesday and Thursday was stabilised on Thursday night.

He was reported doing even better on Friday and yesterday even though he was still on the ventilator. His siblings continue to breathe on their own and improve.

Their parents, the Cummings family member said, had been cautioned about the uncertainties in the early development of the pre-mature babies.

Chairman of the North West Regional Health Authority told Sunday Newsday that with pre-term babies things could change in a moment.

Meanwhile, the goodwill and response by the larger community to their family on the birth of the historic sextuplets, the family member said, “generally, has been overwhelmingly good. We appreciate all the support that have come our way, and cannot help thanking God and the medical community.”

Noting that the family was not accustomed to publicity, having lived very private lives, she acknowledged that the birth of six children was historic and people would want to know how they were developing. Information on their growth and development, she said, would be at their parents’ discretion.

The birth of the sextuplets - three boys and three girls - broke several records. They were the first set to born in Trinidad and Tobago and the Caribbean. A medical team of 60 was on hand to receive them.

In addition, based on online records, Lee Foon’s pregnancy - 30 to 31 weeks - would have been the longest for sextuplets worldwide thanks to the care of local medical doctors and nurses at the women’s hospital.

According to consultant obstetrician, Dr Bharat Bassaw, Lee Foon was in the public health care system since she was seven weeks pregnant. She was “warded under 27 weeks of gestation.”

Lee Foon’s term of pregnancy broke the 1997 US world record in which the Thompson’s sextuplets of Washington DC were gestated during a 29-month six-days pregnancy. One of the six died. Jacqueline, the mother of the Thompson’s sextuplets was born in Trinidad, and the father, Linden, was born in Guyana.