Premature twin girls survive against all odds

In a rare case, twin babies weighing 600 grams and 620 grams during their premature birth, in Udaipur district of Rajasthan, have managed to survive.

The twin girls struggled for four months under neonatal care before they were discharged from a hospital on Sunday.

The twins, who were conceived via in vitro fertilisation (IVF), were born prematurely at just 24 weeks of gestation.

The babies' mother, Chinta Devi, had uncontrolled blood pressure, gestational diabetes and she started bleeding at 24 weeks of her pregnancy.

The girls were delivered through an emergency caesarean section on October 25, 2017.

According to doctors treating the babies, the twins were barely larger than a human hand.

They were put on artificial breathing support and were shifted to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), where they were put on a ventilator to expand their tiny and immature lungs.

"The twins had several complexities, including blood infection, and required multiple blood transfusions. One of the babies had a large connection between two major vessels which was closed with medicines," said neonatologist Sunil Janged, who headed the team of doctors and nurses at Jivanta Children's Hospital in Udaipur.

The babies could not be fed naturally and were put on total parenteral nutrition (TPN).

"Umbilical lines were put to get venous access. The major challenge before us was to prevent their weight loss as such babies lose water very quickly through their parchment-like skin," added Janged.

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.