Birth of quadruplets creates buzz in Pimpri,family worried

“We live in a chawl in Pimple Gurav area. Our rent is Rs 2,500 per month. This leaves us hardly any cash to look after our daily expenditure,” the new mother said. Anita’s husband Arjun added,“In this time,for a labourer like me,it will be a difficult job to bring them up”.

For starters,the family was worried about paying the hospital bill. “We have to pay Rs 1,500 NICU charges per day. Besides this,we must pay Rs 5,000 as deposit and also spend cash for buying medicines,” Anita had said. However,this changed when Dr Hemant Deshpande,incharge of Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology,told Newsline that the hospital will waive the bill for the family. “We know the family is poor. We will not charge a single paisa from them,” said Dr Deshpande.

This eased at least some of the financial burden of the family. “I am happy. The hospital has been very kind,” Anita said,when she heard of the hospital’s gesture.

Dr Deshpande said Anita came to the hospital in the seventh month of her antenatal period and was suffering from anaemia and pregnancy-induced hypertension. “She had very high chances of pre-term delivery and complications. But our team of doctors ensured that the patient remained in good health for 40 days,” he said. A few hours after she delivered the babies through a C-Section,Dr Deshpande said,the mother was in a condition to sit upright. “She is stable and so are all the four boys,” he said. All the babies are male and weigh between 1.1 kg and 1.6 kg. “Presently,they are in NICU for low birth weight and are making steady progress,” he said.

The birth of the four babies has created quite a buzz in Pimpri,with curious residents trickling in at the hospital to have a look at what they described as “wonder boys.” However,they were left disappointed as the babies were in the NICU,where visitors are barred.

Doctors at the hospital said chances of conceiving quadruplets naturally is 1 in 700,000 births. Former PCMC health chief Dr Anand Jagdale said,“The birth of quadruplets,that too all boys,has rarely been heard in Pimpri-Chinchwad.”

Dr P D Patil,president of Dr D Y Patil Prathisthan,vice-chairman Bhagyashree Patil,hospital dean Dr Amarjit Singh,superintendent Dr B D Mahajan and medical director S V Tungar described it as a team effort that ensured the successful delivery of the quadruplets.