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Dr John Essien (holding mike) and Pastor Salome James admire the triplets who are in their cots as proud mother, Mrs Cheryl Edwards looks on (extreme left). |
Charlestown Nevis (April 26, 2004) -- The Change Centre of Nevis has made a commitment to assist the island’s first set of triplets in thirty years. The good news was passed on to the mother of the triplets on Monday by the Executive Director of the Charlestown-based non-governmental organisation, Pastor Salome James.
“I do not know that I could say that I imagine how you are going to raise these three children, but we have decided to do a beginning for you. The Change Centre will be intermittently making presentations to you as the children get older,” Mrs James told Mrs Cheryl Edwards, at a brief ceremony held at the maternity ward of the Alexandra Hospital.
Making a presentation valued at EC$500.00, Pastor James congratulated the mother of triplets, who is originally from Guyana and explained that “this morning this presentation of two cases of pampers and some cash is because we know that you will have needs and we trust that as you continue to raise them that they would be great people in this world.”
The triplets, a girl and two boys, were born on the morning on Tuesday, April 20, and according to Mrs Edwards, who is a mother of another six children, not even the doctors knew that she was carrying triplets until the day they were born, even though she had been admitted there earlier, when it was realised that she was encountering problems with her pregnancy.
A humorous mother, who said that triplets and even quadruplets have been born in her family, told the press: “When the two babies came out, and then the doctor said, ‘Oh, sister, we have baby number three, it is coming’, and I said, ‘Doc, are you serious’, he said yes, then when they came out he said, we Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.”
Alexandra Hospital’s Gynaecologist, Dr John Essien, noted that the incidence of triplets all over the world is approximately one in every 8,000 pregnancies. He said that the last recorded occurrence of triplets in Nevis was approximately thirty years ago and that to his knowledge they passed on because they were delivered prematurely.
The Nevis triplets were pre-term having been delivered after approximately 34 weeks of pregnancy and had low body weight. He confirmed that they are improving and while their care is a dedicated job, the staff at the hospital are prepared to ensure that the triplets attain full weight, saying that their discharge would depend on how they would gain weight but he was optimistic that it could be in another seven days.
