Parents lose all five babies born on Friday

Quintuplets had premature birth at 26 weeks

KARACHI: Quintuplets blessed to a Gwadar couple in Karachi died on Monday after battling for their life for four days.

The couple was blessed with five babies - three girls and two boys - at Darul Sehat Hospital in Gulistan-e-Jauhar early on Friday morning. Three of the babies were in critical condition and were being kept under observation.

"We tried really hard to save the new-born babies but they couldn't survive as they were born premature at 26 weeks with low birth weight and weak lungs," said a statement released by the hospital on Monday.



One of the girls and both the boys weighed 0.6 kilogrammes each whereas the remaining girls weighed 0.7kg and 0.8kg, according to consultant paediatrician Dr Shireen Qasim.

The 32-year-old mother of the quintuplets, Waheeda Javed, was deemed stable after a normal delivery whereas three of the babies weighing 0.6kg were said to be in critical condition.

They were kept in incubators.

The father, Javed, sounded disheartened when he spoke to The Express Tribune over the phone.

"These two days [Sunday and Monday] have been the darkest days of my life as I alone buried five of my babies," he said. "The first baby died on Sunday and, within the next few hours, all of them died one after the other with the last death taking place on Monday afternoon."

Javed shared that both he and the mother are in shock. "It was just not in our fate to return to our hometown with our babies," he said, adding that the couple will return empty-handed to Gwadar today.

The couple have a five-year-old son, named Jeand.



Published in The Express Tribune, May 17^th, 2016.