JAIPUR: In a miraculous show of endurance, twin baby boys weighing just 475 gm and 617 gm during their premature birth have survived after a stormy clinical course of neonatal care for four months at a hospital in Udaipur city of Rajasthan. They are stated to be among the smallest twins to have ever survived in India.
Born to Shobha Kanwar and Ganpat Singh from Jalore, who were married for 27 years, the ultra micro-preemies were conceived with in vitro fertilisation (IVF) technique at a fertility centre in Udaipur and were born prematurely at 26 weeks of gestation. The twin babies were born on January 20 this year.
“These twins, delivered through an emergency caesarean section, were barely larger than a human hand and were very precious and the only hope for the family. They required artificial breathing support and were quickly transferred to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU),” Sunil Janged, neonatologist at Udaipur's Jivanta Children's Hospital, said on Thursday.
Sheltered in a closed incubator and in the midst of tubes, circuits, central lines, probes, dressings and eye pads, the babies were virtually invisible during the initial days. They were put on ventilator and given surfactant to expand their tiny immature lungs, as they were struggling to breathe.
Dr. Janged, who led a team of doctors and nursing staff at the hospital for ensuring the twins’ incredible survival, said the babies had infection in blood and their heart functions and pumping was poor. As their gut was immature and could not be fed, the babies were put on total parenteral nutrition (TPN), supplying all essential nutrients by blood.
The twins required ventilatory support for 70 days as well as multiple blood transfusions. As a fallout of premature birth, they used to forget to breathe because of immaturity of brain. Dr. Janged said regular screening of their heart and brain was performed to rule out any bleeding in brain.
The baby boys completed the clinical course in NICU in 126 days and weighed 1.70 kg and 1.95 kg on their discharge. Their brain is structurally normal and eyes are developing normally.
Dr. Janged pointed out that only 10% to 20% of such low birthweight babies survived at the best of centres. “Most doctors do not even attempt to save such babies, as the possibility of their healthy survival is very low.”
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.
Jeevanta Children's Hospital had earlier saved the lives of twin girls weighing 600 gm and 620 gm in March this year and also successfully treated a newborn baby weighing just 400 gm after her premature birth in January this year.
