Baby boom mother banks on better health care facilities

Abu Dhabi: Her precious babies may be perfectly healthy right now, but Al Shaima Hamza Kamal Aideen is nevertheless worried about providing them with proper care during their infant years.

The 26-year-old Sudanese mother and her businessman husband Mubarak Al Bushr Abdullah, 36, were blessed with a set of quadruplets on December 19, an event in the capital that was hailed a miracle because the odds of conceiving four babies without fertility assistance are estimated at one in nearly half a million.

"Now that I have held and fed and taken care of my four bundles of joy, I am even more concerned about ensuring their well-being. Multiple pregnancies are not at all uncommon in my hometown of Khartoum in Sudan, but the tragedy is that most babies do not make it past the age of five due to dated health care facilities and lack of equipment there," Al Shaima told Gulf News.

She is currently living with her mother, four babies and another three-year-old son at a cousin's apartment in the capital. Her husband was forced to return to his work in Khartoum ten days after the babies were delivered.

Proper treatment

"While I take care of my babies, feeding and clothing them numerous times every day, I am also looking for work so that my babies and I can avail of the advanced health care available here," Al Shaima said.

It was this concern for proper medical treatment that first brought her and her little family to the capital in September 2011, six months into her pregnancy. In Khartoum, one doctor had told the couple that they had conceived a baby with eight limbs, while others had said Al Shaima was carrying twins with abnormal heartbeats. In addition, two of the triplets delivered by her sister-in-law did not survive past the age of five, Al Shaima said.

As a qualified anaesthetist who was working until her pregnancy, the then-expectant mother decided to get better medical advice in the capital, where her high-risk pregnancy meant she was soon being followed up by medical experts at the Corniche Hospital.

Although the quadruplets — a girl, Fatima, and the three boys Zayed, Khalifa and Saif who were all named after the UAE's ruling family — were delivered by Caesarian section in the neonatal intensive care unit, they were all discharged after ten days.

And while the couple had approached the Sudanese embassy for financial assistance, a generous donation to cover their hospital expenses by the Office of General Shaikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, surprised them.

"I was so very grateful for Shaikh Mohammad's help, and for all the lovely care I received at the hospital," Al Shaima said.

"This care is why I want to return to Sudan when my babies are about two years old, at which age I feel they will have received all the vaccinations required and gained a strong enough constitution to grow up healthy," she added.

For now, the babies are using up 20 nappies a day, and consuming nearly a kilogram of infant formula every three days.

Al Shaima said they sleep peacefully for hours during the day, especially when placed next to one another. "But they are always up at night, and my mother and I take turns feeding and changing them," she added.

Her husband calls on a daily basis to check up on his family.

"We talk about how I can get a job here for us both so that we can provide our babies with the best care. We are not worried about their education as public schooling is free in Sudan. But we are terribly concerned about giving them the best medical care," she said.

More prone to infection

Although the quadruplets were healthy when discharged, a series of check-ups and vaccinations, as well as regular breastfeeding, are required to ensure their proper health, Dr Vijaya Gowri Ramanathan, director of foetal medicine at Corniche Hospital, told Gulf News.

"Newborns have much less immunity compared to healthy adults and are more prone to infections. This is why they are regularly checked and receive a range of vaccinations till the age of 18 months. In addition, breastfeeding helps boost their immunity," Dr Ramanathan said.