A woman in Texas has given birth to 'mind-blowingly' rare identical quadruplets - a major surprise for her third pregnancy.
Already a mother of two, Mercedes Sandhu, 34, and her husband Jonathan, 37, welcomed Hannah Grace, Lucy Marie, Rebecca Claire, and Petra Anne on May 1 without the help of IVF - a one in 15million event.
The babies are in the hospital receiving nutrition through a feeding tube and breathing with the help of a CPAP machine.
Mrs Sandhu did not believe her doctor at first when they told her about what she described as ‘four little blobs’ on her ultrasound scan; neither did her husband. He kept asking her over the phone if she was joking.
The Texas couple, both engineers, have two sons, Luke, 3, and Aaron, 18 months
Mercedes Sandhu gave birth to four identical babies on May 1. They weighed a little over two pounds and will remain in the neonatal intensive care unit until at least July
Giving birth to four identical babies without the help of fertility medicine is extremely rare. There are only about 72 documented cases ever and only a handful of cases in the US.
Multiple-baby pregnancies almost always result in babies being born prematurely, before 37 weeks, requiring them to remain in the hospital sometimes up to months.
Quadruplets are the result of a single fertilized egg splitting into four embryos
Multiple-birth babies are also more likely to be born with some congenital birth effects, including spina bifida.
Hannah Grace, Lucy Marie, Rebecca Claire, and Petra Anne were born weighing between two pounds seven ounces and two pounds 13 ounces.
Having multiple babies in a womb gets crowded, which means the babies may not grow as expected.
Their small size also results from the placenta, which supplies blood to all four fetuses, which can’t keep up with nourishing so many babies.
Babies born early may not have fully developed lungs, brain, or other organs, and their immune systems may not be prepared to fight off infections.
The babies are doing well and will likely come home in July to join Sandhu’s other children, Luke, 3, and Aaron, 18 months.
The babies were born at 29 weeks, about eight weeks short of normal gestation. This is not uncommon for multiple birth pregnancies, often because the placenta has to work overtime to nourish all of them in a crowded womb in which babies may not be able to grow normally
The Sandhu's third pregnancy was a surprise. Mr Sandhu did not believe at first that his wife was carrying four babies, which is risky for both mother and babies
The Sandhu's pregnancy is the 73 ever to be confirmed. Because multiple birth pregnancies are high risk, mom and dad were overjoyed to find their babies were overall healthy
Mrs Sandhu said: ‘So we weren’t trying by any means, but we were excited. We loved the idea of giving our boys another sibling. But when we found out there were four … Holy moly!’
‘Holy moly,’ her husband echoed.
Already a seasoned new mother, Mrs Sandhu told her husband there would be no need to go with her to her first doctor's appointment—there would be many more scans to attend, she said.
But when the doctor showed her the four heads on the computer monitor, Mrs Sandhu said she became ‘a little bit hysterical.’
When she told her husband the shocking news, he didn’t believe her at first.
The doctor detailed to her the myriad risks that come alongside carrying quadruplets, or any multiples of babies for that matter.
Carrying multiple babies could leave a mother anemic, meaning she does not have enough healthy red blood cells to carry oxygen throughout the body.
She may also see excess bleeding after birth due to an over-distended uterus.
Women with multiple fetuses are also twice as likely to develop high blood pressure during pregnancy and are more likely to miscarry during the first trimester.
Mr Sundhu said: ‘The odds of conceiving identical quadruplets is mind-blowing. So the odds of them making it through anything is a slam dunk compared to that.’