Kentucky Quintuplets Born Weeks Apart

    LEXINGTON, Ky., Dec. 5 /PRNewswire/ -- A set of quintuplets born earlier
 this week could be the first set in the world born weeks apart.
     Monica Wainscott of Frankfort, Ky., gave birth to Bailey Christine at
 Central Baptist Hospital in Lexington, Ky., after going into labor Nov. 16.
 Bailey weighed 1 pound, 4 ounces.  Wainscott and Bailey then were transferred
 to UK Hospital and UK Children's Hospital, respectively.
     Bailey's two sisters and two brothers -- Avery Maxine, Shelby Tyler, Lucas
 O'Brien, and William Garrett -- were born more than two weeks later on Dec. 2.
     John O'Brien, M.D., perinatologist at Central Baptist Hospital and a
 community-based faculty member in the UK College of Medicine, said the opening
 of the womb was sewn and medication to stop labor was given to the mother to
 prevent the other infants from being born until they could develop further.
 O'Brien said he gave Wainscott more medication to put off labor than he has
 given any other patient.  "Monica showed enormous courage and determination in
 the commitment to give her babies as much time as possible in the womb."
     Sewing up the opening of the womb in cases of multiple births is not
 uncommon, O'Brien said, adding that he has found evidence of only one other
 case involving quintuplets and four of those five babies did not survive.
     The infants are the second set of quintuplets born in Kentucky this year.
 The other quintuplets, from Louisville, were the first born in the state in
 more than 80 years.
     Wainscott didn't see Bailey until Thanksgiving Day.  "It was quite an
 emotional scene on a very symbolic day," O'Brien said, "there were lots of
 tears."
     "To be able to buy even two weeks time allowing the babies to mature made
 an important difference," said Nirmala Desai, M.D., neonatologist at UK
 Children's Hospital.
     Wainscott went into active labor Dec. 2 and the four infants were
 delivered by Caesarean section by a team of more then 20 physicians, nurses
 and other health care staff, Desai said.
     "It was an exemplary team effort," O'Brien said.
     On Tuesday, Desai reported that all of the infants were responding well to
 treatment and one infant, Lucas O'Brien (Dr. O'Brien's namesake) had been
 taken off a respirator.
     "They are very stable and are doing quite well for their gestational age,"
 Desai said.
     Wainscott and her husband Milton, also have a son, Cody, 10.
 
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SOURCE  Central Baptist Hospital