A British mom should go out and buy a lottery ticket. She gave birth to an identical set of triplets in Austria yesterday, an occurrence that only happens once in every 200 million births.
Named Zoe, Kim and Amy, the girl triplets were delivered by Caesarean section on Monday in their mother’s 32nd week of pregnancy, a few weeks premature, a statement by the main hospital in Feldkirch in western Austria said.
The tiny trio, each weighing in at 1,500 grams (3.3 pounds) and measuring 40 cm (15.7 inches), were doing well although they would remain attached to respirators in the intensive care unit for several weeks to ensure no complications set in.
The triplets were conceived naturally, without fertility treatment, by the 25-year-old mother, who lives in the area with her Austrian partner, a hospital spokeswoman said.
“This was a whim of nature,” Peter Schwaerzler, head of the hospital’s gynaecological unit, told Austrian news agency APA.
What was rare about the birth was that the original egg split into two and one of these cells split again during the initial days of the pregnancy, then all three developed without deformities or other complications.
Only two of three triplets are identical siblings in most cases.
A set of identical triplets were born at the hospital my son was born at 30 weeks. The nurses always talked about that babies and I saw them once while waiting to see my son. All three boys had cleft palates is the exact same spot, which is the first known case of identical triplets born with cleft lips. An amazing occurrence. Surgery has corrected their lips and they are developing better than the average two year old.
