Babies, more babies

[NewsWhore]

With the birth of a set of triplets, the very expensive arrival of multiple births continues in the Dominican Republic. Within a 24-hour period doctors at the Altagracia Maternity Hospital in Santo Domingo, the nation's largest maternity facility, delivered sextuplets and triplets, a truly rare occurrence, given the fact that sextuplets are a once-in-45-million-births event, and a year and a half ago the DR had its first ever sextuplets. The cost of these multiple births is staggering, according to Hoy newspaper. Dr. Luis Rivera, head of Perinatology at the hospital said that in 36 hours the hospital had spent around RD$1.0 million on the five surviving sextuplets and four or five million more will be spent on their care during their stay at the hospital. At 9:40am on Saturday, Madeline Cuesta gave birth to premature triplets. The babies are in critical condition, arriving after just 23 weeks of pregnancy. Unlike the mother of the sextuplets, Cuesta had not received fertility treatment. Dr. Rivera told reporters that the country should establish some sort of rule for assisted pregnancies because they can become national tragedies and not triumphs of medicine. The triplets were all born weighing less than 500 grams, and the doctors do not give them much of a chance. This is the fifth pregnancy that Cuesta has lost, according to Diario Libre.

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