SALT LAKE CITY – A Utah woman gave birth to a healthy set of quintuplets over the weekend with help from a team of eight doctors, one anesthesiologist and dozens of nurses ensuring the mother and the tiny babies survived.
Guillermina and Fernando Garcia’s five babies — three girls and two boys — weigh between 2 to 3 pounds each and are expected to have to stay at the University of Utah hospital for another six weeks. Doctors predict they will grow up completely healthy.
Guillermina Garcia, 34, carried the babies until 31½ weeks — seven weeks shorter than most single-birth pregnancies but about three weeks longer than most quintuplet mothers. The extra time in the womb helped their lungs develop more than other quintuplets, said Dr. Elizabeth O’Brien.
“They are all doing remarkably well,” O’Brien said.
It was the first set of quintuplets ever born at the hospital. Fewer than 10 quintuplet sets are born each year in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention counted 37 babies who were born as part of a set of five or more in 2010.
The Utah couple used fertility drugs, which increases the odds of a woman having multiple births. All five babies were born by cesarean section.
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