Identical Triplets Born, Rare Birth amidst Odds

A woman has beaten the odds of 160,000 to one to give birth to identical triplet girls, according to BBC.

Ffion, Maddison and Paige Gilbert, who were conceived naturally from one egg, are now at home in Pontypool in Torfaen after spending six weeks in hospital. Their parents, Karen and Ian, said they had been offered a termination during the pregnancy because of the risks to both mother and babies. Now aged eight weeks old the girls are healthy and thriving.

Mrs Gilbert said she and her husband, who already have a three-year-old daughter called Faye, went through a range of emotions after finding out they were to become parents to triplets. They had gone to hospital after Mrs Gilbert, 32, experienced pain eight weeks into her pregnancy - and a scan showed three heart beats.

"We were just very shocked," she said.  "The lady doing the scan had to call somebody else into the room to check what she was seeing was right. "We pretty much left the hospital laughing, crying, laughing, crying. But we were over the moon." The couple were offered the chance to either terminate the pregnancy or attempt to reduce the number of babies.

"The risks were so high to me and the babies because they shared a placenta," said Mrs Gilbert. "There was the chance of twin to twin syndrome, where one baby can starve the other two babies of food and other fluids. "But we just couldn't do it. The babies are ours." The girls were born safe on 2 August at 30 weeks at the Royal Gwent Hospital in Newport. Ffion weighed 3lb 8oz, Maddison was 3lb 5oz and Paige weighed 3lb 4oz.