Posted on May 24, 2004 at 5:00 p.m.
BIRMINGHAM, AL — Emily Morgan Webb, the oldest of the Webb identical quadruplet girls, was the first to be discharged from UAB Hospital today. With one down and three to go, parents Christine and Kevin Webb of Guin, Alabama, are looking forward to having all four girls at home and getting into a scheduled routine of preparing bottles and changing diapers.
“We’re really excited to be taking Emily with us today,” Christine said. “But we can’t wait to get all of them home.
“Emily gets to be pink,” Christine said, pointing to the pink nail polish in her purse and explaining that she and her husband have devised a plan to keep from getting the girls ‘mixed up.’” The others will be green, purple and yellow. “We tried to pick girly colors, but they couldn’t all be pink.” The girls will wear clothing and fingernail and toenail polish in their signature colors.
Doctors at UAB estimate the odds of having four identical quadruplets conceived naturally without any help from fertility drugs are about one in eight million. “But it may be even less common than that, since the odds are difficult to calculate,” said neonatologist Joe Philips, M.D., who has helped care for the babies in the UAB Critical Care Nursery for the last two and a half months.
Today, Emily weighs 5 pounds, 9 ounces. When she was born she weighed 2 pounds, 4 ounces.
The other three girls, Marley Alaina, Lindsey Reagan and Sydney Michaela, will follow sister Emily home within the next couple of weeks, Philips said. The girls were born March 17 at 30 weeks gestation, approximately 10 weeks premature. The mother’s original due date was later this week and hospital discharge around the time of the mother’s original due date is typical of premature babies, Philips said.
Once premature babies are breathing on their own, treatment goals usually involve supportive care and proper nutrition. In order to be discharged, the girls must meet certain criteria, including the ability to go at least five days in a row without having an apnea episode or drop in heart rate, normal symptoms among premature babies. As the other three Webb girls continue to develop and meet those criteria, they will be discharged, he said.
Eight Million to One Odds: Identical Quads Born at UAB Hospital
Posted on March 23, 2004 at 5:55 p.m.
Naturally conceived quadruplets born March. 17 at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospital (UAB Hospital) appear to be identical based on placental examination and blood testing — a one-in-eight-million “amazingly rare event,” according to the doctor who delivered the babies.
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