Thriving against the odds, twin girls born just hours after 24-week abortion limit
THEY were born just hours after the abortion deadline and were given almost no chance of survival.
Twins Sapphire and Ruby Wirt were delivered by emergency caesarean at 24 weeks, the legal limit for abortion, and were smaller than their mother Caroline’s hand.
But doctors covered the sisters in medical-issue bubble wrap to keep them warm and put them on ventilators. And despite a string of health problems since their birth the twins have survived to become happy and healthy two-year-olds.
Yesterday Mrs Wirt, 36, told how the girls nearly didn’t make it into the world after her waters broke at the family home near East Grinstead, West Sussex, on January 4, 2015. At 23 weeks, she was taken to the neonatal intensive care unit at Royal Sussex County Hospital, Brighton.
She said she and her husband Andy were told that if the twins were born before 24 weeks medics would not be able to step in and assist them if they weren’t breathing.
During the next week Mrs Wirt contracted sepsis, and as doctors couldn’t risk the twins getting it they were delivered by caesarean. Sapphire weighed 1lb 2oz, and Ruby came along a minute later at 1lb 5oz.
Mrs Wirt said: ‘I had them bang on the day I turned 24 weeks pregnant, which meant the hospital staff were able to intervene. Any earlier and the chances were the doctors would not have been able to help them. But they were just the right side of the time limit and because they were breathing, they were able to step straight in and ventilate them.’
Guidelines for NHS hospitals state that babies should not be given intensive care if they are born at less than 24 weeks.
The guidance is not compulsory but advises doctors that medical intervention for very premature children is not in the best interests of the baby and is not ‘standard practice’. Both girls needed surgery for various problems but at five and a half months – six weeks after their original due date – they were allowed home to join their three siblings.
Mrs Wirt said: ‘To have both of them standing here is a complete miracle. They’ve overcome everything in their way which I’m sure is down to their unique bond.’