Last-born sextuplet becomes first to go home from hospital
Beacon Journal | 04/20/2004 |
"Lucy Arlene Hanselman has left the building!
"Lucky Lucy'' was outfitted in a special yellow dress Tuesday to leave the hospital, the first of Ohio's first sextuplets to go home. She and Isabella Jean, Sophia Ivy, Kyle Allen, Logan James and Alex Edwin were born Feb. 26 to Jennifer and Keith Hanselman at Akron General Medical Center. The babies arrived via Caesarean section, all in the same minute. They were born at 28 weeks, old enough to survive, but premature enough to create a great deal of worry. Now, those worries are beginning to evaporate, beginning with Lucky Lucy, as workers in the neonatal intensive care unit at Children's Hospital nicknamed her. In the next several days, each of her five siblings could graduate from the hospital to the Hanselman home in Cuyahoga Falls. "We thought the first to go home would have been one of the boys,'' Jennifer said. But Lucy turned out to be the one who was doing the best,'' she continued, with her daughter nuzzling in her arms. ``She's a good bottle feeder.''...So why was Lucy first? "It's fundamentally when babies who are born premature have the ability to maintain good body temperatures, eat by mouth and have a mature breathing drive, which Lucy has,'' Kokomoor said. Lucy is belting down about eight bottles a day. Each contains a little less than 2 ounces. That's big doings for someone as tiny as Lucy. Once home, her parents plan to keep her close to the hospital's routine. That means feedings every three hours. "She (Lucy) usually sleeps in between. Feeding is a big job,'' Jennifer said knowingly. Jennifer and Keith regularly help with feedings at the hospital -- Jennifer during the day and Keith at night. Jennifer -- who had pumped breast milk for the sextuplets the first six weeks -- now uses NeoSure, a formula for premature babies that was donated by Similac."