Talk about having belated Christmas presents – not only multiplied twice but five times! First time parents Jamie and Kevin Ferrante gazed upon their first child, or rather, first children when the mother gave birth to the quintuplets on Saturday at the Staten Island University Hospital.
The Associated Press has this report:
The babies — all delivered within 6 minutes by Caesarean section — ranged in weight from 1 pound, 8 ounces, to about 2 pounds, 4 ounces, the newspaper said. It gave their names as Allesia Louise, Amanda Frances, Ella Lilliana, Emily Ann and Matthew Sabatino.
Fertility treatments have made multiple births more common in recent decades, but quintuplets remain rare. The federal government’s National Center for Health Statistics tallied 68 quintuplet and higher-order births in 2005, compared to more than 400 quadruplets, 133,000 twins and 4.1 million births overall.
Hospitals in Houston, Phoenix and Annapolis, Md., also reported quintuplet births this year.
Saturday’s quintuplet birth was a first for the Staten Island hospital, Preston said.
As you may already know, giving birth to quintuplets is not that common of an occurrence. Looking at those statistics presented above, isn’t it beyond amazing how many quintuplet births have occurred in this year alone? Think about it – I don’t think that I even know someone personally who has had triplets, much less quintuplets. One thing I know for sure – the family of these children are going to have a big celebration for the New Year and for many years to come.
