JAIPUR: Showing grit and determination against odds, twin babies weighing just 600 gm and 620 gm during their premature birth in Udaipur town have survived. The tiny twin girls struggled for four months under a stormy clinical course of neonatal care before their discharge from a hospital over the weekend.
The babies of Chinta Devi, a native of Motihari in Bihar, are among the smallest twins to have ever survived in the country. The twins, who were conceived with in vitro fertilisation (IVF) technique at a fertility centre in Udaipur, were born prematurely at just 24 weeks of gestation.
These twins were barely larger than a human hand and were the only hope for the poor family from Bihar. They required artificial breathing support and were shifted to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), where they were put on ventilator to expand their tiny and immature lungs.
Neonatologist Sunil Janged, who led a team of doctors and nursing staff at Jivanta Children's Hospital for ensuring the girls’ incredible survival, said on Saturday that the babies had infection in blood and their heart’s pumping was very poor. One of the babies had a large connection between two major vessels which was closed with medicines.
The babies were put on total parenteral nutrition (TPN) as they could not be fed naturally. “The umbilical lines were put to get venous access. The major challenge before us was to prevent their weight loss, as such infants lose water very quickly through their parchment-like skin,” said Dr. Janged.
Becuase of the brain's immaturity, the babies often forgot to breathe. They required the ventilator’s support for 80 days as well as multiple blood transfusions during their stay in NICU for 115 days. Their weight on discharge was 2 kg and 1.94 kg, respectively, and their brain was structurally normal and eyes were developing normally.
“At the best of the centres, only 30% of such babies born this early survive. Most doctors do not even attempt to save such babies, as the possibility of their healthy survival is very low. The latest technology and high-end expertise of my team pulled this off,” said Dr. Janged.
Chinta Devi and her husband Chandeshwar Ram have been married for 21 years. The mother had uncontrolled blood pressure and gestational diabetes and she started bleeding at 24 weeks of her pregnancy. The girls were delivered through emergency caesarean section on October 25, 2017.
The existing record for the smallest twins to survive in the country is from Kerala, where a pair of baby girls weighing 452 gm and 500 gm had gained normalcy after neonatal intervention in 2016.
Mr. Ram, the proud father of the twin girls, said the hospital had waived 50% of the treatment cost in support of the Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao campaign. “Coming from a low income family, it was not possible for us to bear the hospital expenses,” he said.
