Kabokweni Triplets end nine months of ‘lockdown’
A set of healthy triplets was born at Themba Hospital on the first day of lockdown. The mother of the babies, 27-year-old Mmathabo Matlala from Edwaleni, was admitted on March 27.
“I feel blessed. I am grateful to the Themba staff for walking this journey with me and for the safe delivery. I feel honoured to have carried three souls during my first pregnancy,” Matlala said. The unemployed mother would appreciate any form of assistance to properly raise her bundles of joy.
“I am not planning on having any more children, because this is a family on its own,” she told Lowvelder. Matlala started her antenatal care in Pretoria and when she relocated to her aunt’s home in Dwaleni, she went for antenatal care at Dwaleni Clinic before being transferred to the high-risk clinic at Themba Hospital.
That was when the hospital’s chief specialist in obstetrics and gynaecology, Dr EF Orrie, did a sonar and discovered that the mother was carrying triplets. Orrie is the very same doctor who delivered them,” explained Lindiwe Mncina, an area manager for the maternity unit.
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The triplets are two boys and a girl. The babies weighed 2 050 grams, 1 800 grams and the smallest was 1 540 grams, at birth. They are currently nursed under kangaroo care, a way to promote their growth and to prevent them from getting infection from the incubators.
“The babies spend 24 hours with their mom. Skin-to-skin contact has been proven to be an efficient way to promote daily weight gain. They are doing fine, gaining weight and being breastfed. Once the little one reaches 1,8 kilograms they can be discharged,” she added.
On Tuesday when this journalist visited the mom and babies in hospital under supervision, the smallest of the triplets weighed 1 740 grams. Mncina added that measures were in place to prevent the Covid-19 coronavirus at the hospital.
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“So far we are happy. We do not suspect any of the pregnant women to have the virus, it is still work as usual. We are still delivering babies every day,” she said. Anyone willing to contribute towards Matlala and her babies, can contact her on 072-554-4559, her cousin, Bonnie Mdluli, on 074-715-3226, or the newspaper.
