The smallest baby boy twins weighing just 475 grams and 617 grams made it to home after a four-month survival battle in the neonatal ICU of a hospital in Udaipur. As per doctors, these ultra micro-preemies are among the smallest twins to have ever survived in India.
Married to Ganpat Singh for 27 years, Shobha conceived through IVF technique. But at 26 weeks of her pregnancy, Shobha started experiencing premature labour pains. Doctors had to go for an emergency caesarean section because the life of babies was at risk.
“Twin babies were born on January 20, 2018, weighing just 475 grams and 617 grams,” said Dr Sunil Janged, Director & Chief Neonatologist at Jivanta Hospital. “They were barely larger than a human hand and required artificial breathing support. So they’re immediately transferred to neonatal ICU,” he added.
“Sheltered in a closed incubator and in the midst of tubes, circuits, central lines, probes, dressings, eye pads,etc. babies were virtually invisible during the initial days. At beginning babies were struggling to breathe, so they were put on a ventilator and given surfactant to expand tiny immature lungs. Babies had an infection in blood, heart functioning and pumping was poor. Their gut was immature and could not be fed, so babies were put on TPN which means giving all essential nutrients such as protein, carbohydrate intravenously.”
Regular screening of heart and brain was performed to rule out any bleeding in brain. Due to brain immaturity baby used to forget to breathe. Babies required ventilatory support for 70 days and multiple blood transfusions,” said Dr Janged.
In all, they were in NICU for 126 days and when they were discharged their weight was 1.7kg and 1.95kg. “We are grateful to doctors that our babies’ lives have been saved when chances of survival were very little,” Ganpat Singh said.
The struggle
At the beginning, babies were struggling to breathe, so they were put on a ventilator and given surfactant to expand tiny immature lungs. Babies had an infection in blood, heart functioning and pumping was poor. Their gut was immature and could not be fed.
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