JEDDAH, 17 July — The government will bear the cost of treatment for the newborn Saudi septuplets and their mother in the United States, Minister of Health Dr. Osama Shubokshi announced yesterday.
Speaking to Saudi Press Agency, he said Crown Prince Abdullah, deputy premier and commander of the National Guard, had issued orders to this effect.
The doctor treating the children said yesterday that they were doing very well and six of them were breathing on their own.
“Those babies are doing very well,” Dr. Siva Subramanian, head of Georgetown University Hospital’s neonatal service, told ABC’s Good Morning America. “Six babies are off the ventilator,” he said, adding that the seventh infant was still using a respirator. Five of the children were breathing on their own on Sunday.
Their 28-year-old mother, whose name has not been disclosed, has held her babies and “seems to be doing great,” said Dr. Craig Winkel, the hospital’s head of obstetrics and gynecology.
The five boys and two girls, the world’s third recorded case of live septuplets, were born late Thursday, some 11 weeks premature.
Despite myriad problems, according to Subramanian, “many things are controllable for babies this size.”
Father Fahd Al-Qahtani, a Saudi high school teacher studying for his masters at George Washington University, told The Washington Post yesterday that he and his wife had first come to the United States three years ago, seeking medical treatment for their 6-month-old son.
The child was on a waiting list in Pittsburgh for a small-bowel transplant but died before the organ became available. Two years earlier, they lost their 3-year-old daughter Hadil, who needed a liver transplant, the report said.
“God took two of them, and He gave us seven,” said 29-year-old Qahtani, who lives in the Washington suburb of Falls Church, Virginia. “We thank Him for it all the time.”
“We hope and we pray for them to get better,” the father was quoted as saying. “We pray for them to be healthy,” he said.
The septuplets were all delivered within three minutes by Caesarian section late on Thursday.
The seven infants are listed in critical condition in the hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit and are expected to remain hospitalized for several months, The Post said.
The newspaper said Qahtani and his wife had named the septuplets after members of the Saudi Royal family. In order of birth, the babies are Bandar, Hayfa, Naif, Shamma, Abdullah, Abdul Aziz and Sultan, the Post said.
The couple also have a 9-year-old son. “After his brother died, he always prayed to God to have a lot of brothers and sisters,” Qahtani told the Post. After learning of the birth of his sisters and brothers, the youngster said, “I’m the leader,” his father told The Post.
The Saudi ambassador to Washington, Prince Bandar ibn Sultan, telephoned the father shortly after the septuplets’ birth, the report said.
“(He) spoke with me and my wife and said, ‘If you want anything, I’m your big brother.’ This means in my culture, ‘Anything you want, I will do it for you,’” Qahtani was quoted as saying. The Post said the couple had wanted 12 children. With their 9-year old son, they are now a family of 10.
