Brisbane family welcomes four identical girls after a pregnancy doctors called almost unimaginable

For most parents, four children is already enough to keep the household economy in a permanent state of emergency. Jenitar Na'amoana and her husband Jortham had that situation neatly settled — until four more daughters arrived in one go, turning an ordinary family life into something far more improbable.

The girls were born by caesarean section on 14 July at the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital in Australia, at 28 weeks and four days. They are identical quadruplets, medically known as monozygotic quadruplets, which means a single fertilised egg split into four embryos. That is rare enough in itself. The hospital said the pregnancy was extremely high risk, and the outcome was watched closely from the start.

Dr Alexa Bendall, the maternal foetal medicine specialist and obstetrician who cared for Na'amoana throughout the pregnancy, said identical quadruplets occur at about one in every 15 million pregnancies. She also said that the fact the babies shared the same placenta was unheard of. The hospital admitted Na'amoana as an inpatient at 25 weeks so she could be monitored, and Bendall said the team had always considered reaching 28 weeks a good result.

That target was beaten, if only just, and with considerable style. Bendall said the birth of four healthy babies at 28 weeks and four days was incredible, and the hospital said the girls are currently doing extremely well in the neonatal intensive care unit. They will remain there until they grow to full term, which is the sort of sentence that sounds clinical until one remembers the scale of what has just happened.

The newborns have been named Emily, Harriet, Catherine and Alexa. One of the girls carries the doctor’s name, something Bendall described as a beautiful tribute. She also said Na'amoana had handled everything from the beginning with remarkable calm and had somehow avoided every complication and risk for both herself and the babies.

The family’s practical problems have not disappeared simply because the medical drama ended well. The other children are between one and 10 years old, and Na'amoana has started an online fundraising campaign to buy a van with at least 10 seats. The appeal has already brought in more than A$37,000, or £19,261.

In a message posted with the fundraiser, Na'amoana said the four babies had arrived safely and that the family’s gratitude was mixed with the reality of caring for four newborns at once. It is a modest reminder that miracles, once delivered, still need to be transported, fed and fitted into a vehicle with enough seats.

Naturally conceived quadruplets are extremely rare, with doctors estimating the odds at about one in 700,000 births. Identical quadruplets are rarer still. Brisbane has gained a medical case that will be remembered for a long time; the family has gained four daughters, and a logistics problem that no spreadsheet was built to solve.

Written by Thorben Thiede thorben.thiede@alpineweekly.com