Not only without fertility drugs but two of the babies are identical twins. Wow, the odds!!
Quads
STANFORD, Calif. - A San Mateo woman gave birth to quadruplets in what doctors described as a one in a million event because she did not use fertility drugs and two babies are identical.
Luz Maria Marmolejo, 39, delivered the three boys and one girl by Caesarean section at Lucile Salter Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford. The babies were delivered 27 weeks into her pregnancy and weighed between 2.2 and 2.6 pounds each.
They have some infections and are hooked to ventilators to help them breathe, but doctors said they are doing well considering how early they were born.
Marmolejo and the babies' father, Yehonatan Tzairi, met while working at a moving company. They relocated from a two-bedroom apartment to a four-bedroom home in San Mateo when they found out they were expecting quadruplets.
Marmolejo's large extended family has offered to help take care of the newborns, as has her 9-year-old son Fernando. Doctors hope the babies will be healthy enough to leave the hospital by their original due date of December 16.
Fertility drugs have increased the number of multiple births in the United States, but the odds of giving birth to quadruplets without them is about 1 in 600,000, a Dr. James Smith, a perinatologist at Packard and clinical associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Stanford. The odds nearly double if the set includes identical twins, he said.
Quads
STANFORD, Calif. - A San Mateo woman gave birth to quadruplets in what doctors described as a one in a million event because she did not use fertility drugs and two babies are identical.
Luz Maria Marmolejo, 39, delivered the three boys and one girl by Caesarean section at Lucile Salter Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford. The babies were delivered 27 weeks into her pregnancy and weighed between 2.2 and 2.6 pounds each.
They have some infections and are hooked to ventilators to help them breathe, but doctors said they are doing well considering how early they were born.
Marmolejo and the babies' father, Yehonatan Tzairi, met while working at a moving company. They relocated from a two-bedroom apartment to a four-bedroom home in San Mateo when they found out they were expecting quadruplets.
Marmolejo's large extended family has offered to help take care of the newborns, as has her 9-year-old son Fernando. Doctors hope the babies will be healthy enough to leave the hospital by their original due date of December 16.
Fertility drugs have increased the number of multiple births in the United States, but the odds of giving birth to quadruplets without them is about 1 in 600,000, a Dr. James Smith, a perinatologist at Packard and clinical associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Stanford. The odds nearly double if the set includes identical twins, he said.
