BABY BOOM
Multiple-birth surge at Brooklyn hospital
ON MANY of his visits to Woodhull Medical Center in Brooklyn, the stork sees double, and sometimes triple.
A record 26 sets of twins and triplets have been delivered at the city-run hospital so far this year, officials announced Wednesday.
“Normally, we do maybe one set of twins a month,” said Dr. Paul Kastell, chief of obstetrics and gynecology at the hospital in Williamsburg.
More than 30 babies and their families came together Wednesday for a reunion at the medical center to celebrate the multiplebirth baby boom. The blearyeyed parents thanked their nurses, midwives and doctors over a holiday-themed brunch.
Many of the parents were in disbelief when they learned they were expecting more than one child.
“We were shocked,” recalled Lucretia Alexander-Haynes, 33, of East Flatbush, who gave birth to triplets Adonis, Benjamin, and Carter on Aug. 16.
The tiny trio are so alike, it’s hard for people to tell them apart. But their mom doesn’t have that problem.
“With Benjamin, he’s a little bit well-rounded in the face with his eyes more wide open,” she said. “With Carter, his eyes are a little bit smaller and his cheeks and the top of his head is narrower than it would be with Benjamin.”
The babies have been welcomed by their 3-year-old big sister, Geneva.
“She’s happy that she’s got all three of her brothers,” father Neil Haynes said. “She loves them very much.”
After years of rising rates, the number of twins born in the United States dipped slightly in 2015, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics.
The rate for triplets and higher multiples has decreased by 46% since from a peak in 1998 to 2015, statistics show.
Vallene Brunson, 33, a former city worker from Brooklyn, gave birth to twins, Taylor and Tyler, on July 2.
“When I first found out, I was like, ‘Fix the screen!’ I’m thinking it’s like a glitch,” Brunson recalled.
The doting mom, who also has a 9-year-old daughter, said the tots are a lot of work, but a gift from god.
“I never thought I would have had twins out of everybody in the family,” she said. “It’s something amazing.”
Registered nurse Sharon Martin cared for little Taylor and Tyler and the Haynes triplets after their births.
“It was amazing,” she said. “For the first time, taking care of three babies at one time, it was interesting.”
The increase in multiple births has puzzled staffers.
“We were just amazed that we were getting so many coming into the hospital,” said Ada Villatoro, the administrator for maternal and child services at the hospital. “This is Brooklyn's best-kept secret.”
The babies were born in the hospital’s new Mother-Baby Unit, which has 15 private rooms. That gives moms and their newborns more bonding time.