Kansas City mom’s 3 new babies are rare triplets, possibly identical, hospital says
A south Kansas City mother delivered three baby girls this past week at University Health, and they’re considered an odds-defying trio.
Most triplets are born through some kind of reproductive assistance. But 32-year-old Adrienne Blanford’s babies were not. And the triplets could possibly be identical — even more unusual.
“Triplets are rare. Twins happen about 1 every 80 births or so. But triplets, natural triplets, are about 1 every 8,000 births,” said Dr. Joshua Petrikin, a pediatrician and neonatal specialist at University Health.
“And identical triplets are more like one every 50,000 births. So they’re rare. They’re still exciting whenever they happen.”
When Blanford found out last year she was carrying three babies, “it was pretty shocking,” she said Friday.
You’re pregnant with twins, she was told at her first ultrasound.
No, wait. There’s one more baby.
Blanford said her husband, Alim Muhammad, had already predicted she was pregnant with more than one baby, even though multiple births don’t run on either side of the family.
The pregnancy progressed “fairly well in the beginning,” she said, until she “kind of blew up, looking like I was nine months pregnant when I was five months.” People stared at her blooming belly. She felt their sympathy.
The babies were born prematurely at nearly 31 weeks, within three minutes of each other Tuesday afternoon.
Their names are E’Mani, Leilani and Khelani Muhammad.
On Friday, Blanford was waiting to be discharged, but the babies were to remain in the hospital’s new neonatal intensive care unit, which opened in September, where they have created a buzz.
None weighed much more than 3 pounds, the smallest girl weighing 2 pounds, 12 ounces.
Multiple births carry complication risks, such as premature birth and low birth weight. Blanford had an emergency C-section.
“Natural triplets, triplets that occur that aren’t a result of assistive reproductive technologies, occur most often when there are two eggs that are fertilized at the same time,” said Petrikin.“So normally that would just be twins, fraternal twins.
“But then one of the fertilized eggs splits, so most often triplets are a set of identical twins and a fraternal twin, and then all three of them makes triplets.”
Naturally occurring identical triplets, he said, happen when “one fertilized egg that splits once, and then one of them splits again, and you have three identical babies.” They share a placenta, as Blanford has been told her babies did.
There’s only “so much space inside Mom, only so much room at the inn” for three growing babies, who are typically smaller at birth, Petrikin said.
Two-thirds of triplets are premature, he said. Arriving at 30 weeks was “pretty good” for Blanford’s daughters, though he would have preferred they had waited until week 34.
But “these triplets are doing amazing,” he said. “None of them needed to be intubated, and they’re just happy little girls on CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) that seem to be doing really well.”
The babies appear identical to Blanford, who audits customer service phone calls for a living. The only way she can tell them apart at this point is that one is a smidgen smaller than her two sisters. She might paint some tiny toenails or use socks of different colors to tell them apart at home.
She said the babies already look like their older sister, who is excited to meet them.
The triplets have four siblings at home, all under the age of 9. Daughters will now outnumber sons there.
“My daughter finally gets a sister,” Blanford said. “Now she has three.”
She said they live a two-bedroom home and aren’t ready yet for three more residents. Space will be tighter now. They’ll need a vehicle with another row of seats, something bigger than their current SUV.
They’re going to need three bassinets too.
So maybe, given the odds these three babies just beat, it’s time to do something Blanford said she’s never done: Play the lottery.
“I think it’s my year to play,” she said.
