BALTIMORE - It was an incredibly rare birth for a Baltimore couple earlier this month.
Tom and Kristen Hewitt welcomed identical triplets to the world on October 6 at Greater Baltimore Medical Center.
Thomas III (Trip), Finnegan (Finn) and Oliver (Ollie) Dean were born by C-section at 33 ½ weeks old. All of the boys weighed in between three and five pounds.
How rare is having identical triplets? Although there is no consensus, the odds of having identical triplets range from one in 60,000 to one in 200 million births.
"When you are caring for identical triplets, the biggest concerns are triplet to triplet transfusion, where a triplet is siphoning blood from another triplet, and selective Intrauterine Growth Restriction (sIUGR) of a triplet which occurs when there is unequal placental sharing which leads to suboptimal growth of one triplet," Victor A. Khouzami, M.D., chairman of the Department of Obstetrics and medical director of the Women's and Infant Services at GBMC, told FoxBaltimore.com. "Luckily though it all turned out well in the end and it was an amazing experience."
The couple said they were conceived without any fertility treatments. Doctors say the triplets were born in excellent condition.
But how are the parents handling the situation of taking care of their new bundles of joy? It looks like they will need a new home.
"Through our relationship, we've found that Tom and I work the best under pressure, so we take the triplets as not only a blessing, but also a challenge that we're most certainly up for," said Kristen. "Finding a new place to live will be another welcomed test since our current row home is not conducive to raising triplets."