Software pro delivers identical quadruplets

Chennai, June 9 (UNI) A 26-year-old software professional delivered identical or 'monozygous' quadruplets, a rare phenomena which occurs one in four million births.

''Online references showed only approximately 26 sets of monozygous quadruplets across the world,'' Dr Charumathi, Consultant-Obstetrician, Apollo Hospitals, told reporters here today.

Aditi, Aakriti, Akshiti and Aapti were born on April 25, over 10 weeks prematurely.

Shruthi Vivekanand, the mother for whom it was the first pregnancy conceived the 'monochorionic quadratic' quadruplets which occur one in six to seven lakh births.

''Though mothers with multiple foetuses begin contractions between 28 and 30 weeks, in this case, the mother went into regular labour at almost 30 weeks as expected,'' Dr Charumathi said.

Despite availability of foetal reduction procedures in modern medicine, it was considered unsafe in Shruthi's case due to the risk of foetal loss of all four babies, who shared the same placental vessels, she added.

The challenge in such rare births was to prevent both the mother and the infants from developing complications as conditions such as anaemia, blood pressure and diabetes which were common for a carrying mother, while respiratory distress syndrome, infection and jaundice were common in pre-term babies.

At birth, the infants weighed less than one kg each, but after constant attention and under the guidance of neonatal doctors, the babies were now weighing around 1.3 kg each.

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