Identical Quadruplets Born in Germany 'Doing Well' (VIDEO)
A 31-year-old German woman recently gave birth to identical quadruplets, an occurrence so rare doctors speculate the odds of this happening at 13 million to 1, and experts say there are only about 60 known sets in the entire world.
The four girls; Laura, Sophie, Jasmin and Kim, were not the product of artificial insemination, according to the German English language paper The Local.
They arrived 10 weeks early on Jan. 6. The babies, who weighed around two to two-and-a-half pounds, were doing fine along with their mother, according to the paper.
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“They came through the early birth astoundingly well,” a spokeswoman for the hospital said.
Doctors at Leipzig Hospital explained that the pregnancy which ran into the 28th week without any problems was fortunate but extremely rare, stating that multiple baby pregnancies are often much shorter.
Although there are risks for any premature babies, the outlook for the four girls looks very good. They will remain in incubators at the hospital until shortly before their scheduled due date.
Identical Quadruplets’ Mom Beats 1-in-13 Million OddsBurkhard Jung, the mayor of Leipzig, was made the girls’ first godfather and went to see them on Tuesday, as reported by the Local.
“Crazy,” Jung said. “It is simply unbelievable. The most beautiful thing is that everything is complete. In short, all are healthy.”
At the moment they can only touch and talk to the little girls while they are in their incubators. However, Ulrich Thome, a doctor at the hospital said, “When they are a little more stable, the mother can begin kangaroo care.”
This refers to when the mother can take them onto her chest and cradle them. The babies are all being bottle fed with their mother’s milk.
Thome said the parents were, “of course somewhat stressed, they do not yet know how it will work when they are released from hospital.”
