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Tuesday, Dec. 22, 1998 Associated Press

80 tiny, weak little fingers cling to life

Smallest octuplet weighs 10.3 ounces; others are over 1 pound each

By TERRI LANGFORD
Associated Press

   HOUSTON - The tiniest weighs just 10.3 ounces and can fit inside a woman's hand. The largest doesn't measure up to the littlest of the McCaughey septuplets. But the Chukwu octuplets were hanging on Monday, a day after seven were delivered to join a sister born Dec. 8.
   All eight children of Nkem and Iyke Chukwu remained in critical condition at Texas Children's Hospital Monday with the 13-day-old girl already breathing on her own, breaking for occasional oxygen sips.
   "She has done very nicely and remarkably well," said Dr. Patti Savrick, the children's pediatrician. "The other babies still have that rocky first week to two weeks in front of them."
   The Texas Children's medical team waved off requests for predictions about the babies' chances for survival, issuing guarded prognoses throughout the day.
   "I think it's too early to say. I think they're critically ill," said Dr. Leonard Weisman, chief neonatal specialist at Texas Children's Hospital. "I think several have shown some improvement and several haven't, but it's too early to say."
   But Dr. Timothy Cooper, a neonatologist and assistant professor of pediatrics and ethics at Baylor College of Medicine, said the seven babies weighing in at more than a pound have about an 85 percent chance of survival.
   The fifth baby out of the womb, the 10.3-ounce girl, will have a tougher fight, he said.
   "For that particular baby it's probably less than an 85 percent chance, and she'll have a higher risk than the larger babies for developing developmental problems," said Cooper, who described her chances at 65 percent to 75 percent.
   Chief among the worries was lung development. Baby A, the girl born Dec. 8, was delivered 15 weeks premature. Her two brothers and five sisters who followed early Sunday morning were born 13 weeks early and all placed on ventilators. All the babies were sedated so they wouldn't be disturbed by nurses adjusting them in their incubators, doctors examining their vital signs and other activities.
   

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  © 1998 Corpus Christi Caller Times, a Scripps Howard newspaper. All rights reserved.