A string of mutiple births kept hospital staffers busy recently.
Today’s Asbury Park Press reports that Riverview Medical Center had a streak going this autumn: a spate of twin births.
From the article:
In an eight-week period from September to late October, 11 sets of twins were delivered at the Red Bank hospital.
As chairwoman of obstetrics and gynecology at Riverview, Dr. Marilyn Loh-Collado oversaw the arrival of these multiple bundles of joy into this world.
“There was no rhyme or reason to it,” Loh-Collado said. “It was just kind of strange.”
Six sets of twins were born in September, Collado tells Press reporter Michael Riley: three sets of males, two sets of females and one set of a boy and a girl.
Five more pairs arrived in October: three sets of male and female and two sets of baby girls. All were born healthy.
While only three percent of live births involve multiples, eighty percent of multiple births involve some sort of artificial reproductive aid, such as ovulation agents, Collado says. Some of those treatments are covered by health plans under New Jersey law.
The baby boomlet kept the hospital ob-gyn staff busy.
”Dr. Eugene Kaskiw, for example, delivered three sets of these twins in the span of one week — on Sept. 15, Sept. 20 and Sept. 22.
“It was a busy week,” Kaskiw said. “You can’t help but be excited. These births represent all the good in our field.”
But Dr. Robert Penney, who “did his part” during the recent streak, tells the Press that it’s not all that unusual.
“We’ve had this kind of thing happen before,” Penney said. “I remember two or three years ago, I delivered 10 babies in one 24-hour period: three sets of twins and three single babies. That was a busy day. But the great thing is that the hospital is prepared for this kind of thing.”
