Sextuplets born at Texas Children's Hospital

April 24, 2012 4:46:23 PM PDT
Their parents are calling them "The Perkins Pack." They're the new set of sextuplets born Monday at Texas Children's Hospital.

The parents of the three girls and three boys are updating what's going on through their website, and caring for the little newborns takes a lot of work.

Lauren Perkins will see her six babies Monday evening for the first time. The Perkins sextuplets were born at Texas Children's Women's Pavilion Monday. The family has not released photos, but the infants were born quickly -- in a four-minute cesarean section. Each baby was handed off to a separate medical team, which had rehearsed the complicated delivery.

Dr. Stephen Welty oversaw those teams.

"They usually have a nurse, a nurse practitioner, a physician or some combination thereof, but enough there so that we can handle any eventuality," Dr. Welt said.

He says they will be given intensive care right in their room with their parents. That's a new concept in neonatal ICUs.

"The more babies you have, the more likely you are to have a blood flow problem to one or more of them. And that's a big issue, you can't mature as well," Dr. Welty said.

He called the Perkins sextuplets cute and said though they were premature -- born at 30 weeks -- he called that remarkable for sextuplets.

"The more mature you, are the less likely you are to be sick but also the less likely you are to suffer what we call the complications of prematurity," Dr. Welty said.

But they do face complications, some of which can lead to disabilities later.

"The complications that you worry about are the brain, the eyes, the lungs and the intestines," Dr. Welty said.

The Perkins babies range in weight from 1 pound 10 ounces to 2 pounds 15 ounces. Dr. Welty says they'll likely be in the hospital for several months.

Dr. Welty was part of the team at Texas Children's that took care of previous sets of octuplets and sextuplets.

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