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Utah Hospital Welcomes Healthy Quintuplets

By Cheri Cheng | Update Date: May 29, 2013 11:03 AM EDT

The University of Utah hospital in Salt Lake City welcomed the first ever quintuplets to be born at the facility. Guillermina, and her husband Fernando Garcia, gave birth to five babies this past Memorial Day weekend. Eight doctors, one anesthesiologist and over a dozen of nurses helped bring the five newborn babies into the world. All five babies are expected to grow up healthy despite being around two to three pounds each. The infants, three girls and two boys, will remain at the hospital for another six weeks so that their growth can be monitored.

Quintuplets are rarely born in the United States with less than 10 sets born per year. Due to the number of infants in the womb at a single time, several health complications could occur. In this case, Guillermina, 34, was able to carry the babies until 31 and a half weeks, which is three weeks longer than the average germination period for most quintuplet mothers.  The doctor at the newborn intensive care unit, Dr. Elizabeth O'Brien believes that the extra weeks helped the babies' organs develop better, increasing their survival rates. Single-birth pregnancies usually take place between 37 and 41 weeks.

The babies were delivered via Caesarean section. The heaviest child is a boy, named after his father that weighed in at three pounds and 14 ounces. The boys, Fernando and Jordan, are currently using breathing tubes. The girls, Esmeralda, Fatima and Marissa are breathing on their own.

"We feel like we're dreaming," Fernando said at a news conference, reported by ABC News. "It's incredible that we have five."

The couple got pregnant with the help of fertility drugs, which have been known to increase the chances of having multiple infants. Guillermina experienced high blood pressure and other medical problems during her pregnancy but persevered through these complications to give birth to five remarkably healthy babies.

"I was excited to see them and see that they were okay, that everything turned out normally," Guillermina added.

The couple, originally from Guanajuato, Mexico, will soon bring home their newborns where a one-year-old sister, Julietta awaits them. 

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