It is almost 12 weeks since news of a woman giving birth to five babies at Iganga General Hospital in eastern Uganda broke in the wee hours of August 24.
The woman in the news was Mutesi Safiyati, who also has a history of giving birth to a set of twins and another of triplets.
This being the first such birth -of quintuplets- at the hospital, excitement among health workers and the public was in equal measure as hordes of people thronged the facility to have a glimpse of the five babies until their discharge, almost a month later in September.
With the visitors came some donations of all manner including a pledge from a politician to build a house for the family so they could move from their grass-thatched hut. From the Makerere University Centre of Excellence for Maternal Newborn and Child Health was a partnership with Iganga Hospital to facilitate a nurse from the hospital’s Newborn Care Unit to regularly check on the babies for three months effective from their September 20 discharge date.
Maureen Babine, the Nursing Officer in charge of the Newborn Care Unit just returned from the third visit to the family in their Kibaale village home in Namutumba District.
“The main reason for this visit was to check on the status of the quintuples as regards to their growth and development, health, the general environment as well as giving the necessary advice to the parents for the betterment of the babies,” she explains, in a two page statement.
General health outlook
According to Ms Babine, all the five babies were healthy and gaining weight: “The first and second baby who had eye problems during the second visit have recovered well on tetracycline eye ointment which was prescribed by the midwife who conducted the second visit. The mother was also healthy and looking nice.”
From the discharge weights of 1.8kgs, 1.8kgs, 1.5kgs, 1.8kgs and 1.7kgs, the babies are now weighing 3.2kgs, 3.2kgs, 3kgs, 3.2kgs and 3kgs respectively in their ascending order of birth. Since all the babies were above 2.5 kilogrammes, the parents were advised to start bathing the babies once a day and only during the day when it is shining.
In terms of the environment, unlike at the previous visit, this time round the hygiene and sanitation in and around the house was in order right from inside the house which was well arranged clean and organised to the places of convenience. The feeding cups and spoons were also clean and covered. I had to encourage them to keep up.
Feeding continues to be mixed including breast milk and infant formula whenever there is no money. However, whenever money is not available to secure the expensive formula, they use cow’s milk as an alternative.
Challenges
Upon leaving hospital, the family couldn’t go back to their mud and wattle grass thatched home and rented a two roomed unit about a kilometre away from home and near a health centre, with the help of their District Woman Member of Parliament Ms Mariam Naigaga who also covered their hospital bill for the private room in which they stayed. In the heat of the moment the legislator also promised to help build for the family a simple permanent home. A road construction company donated 100 bags of cement which might waste way.
Communication between the legislator and the family has reportedly broken down due to unnamed people the family refers to as “saboteurs” who may have thought they were getting a lot of funding from the MP. Tied down to looking after the quintuplets and five other children, without a source of income, the couple that was previously into subsistence farming is now appealing to the public to help them construct “a simple house” before the donated cement goes to waste.
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