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Source: Janet Basu
415-476-2557
11 December 1998
QUADRUPLETS BORN AT UCSF
Quadruplets - two girls and two boys - were born Thursday, December 10 at UCSF Medical Center, part of UCSF Stanford Health Care. Their parents are Charlotte and Rupert Dusauzay (pronounced doo-saw-zay) of San Francisco. The babies, delivered by cesarean section, were all listed in good condition by Thursday afternoon. Their names and birthweights are: Rupert Gabriel, 1640 grams (3 lbs. 10 oz.); Alexandria Alma, 1520 grams (3 lbs. 5 oz.); Solomon Omar, 1210 grams (2 lbs. 10 oz.); Danielle Helen, (830 grams (1 lb. 13 oz).
Their mother, 39, who is a service representative at Pacific Bell, spent much of her pregnancy on bedrest to ensure the babies’ health. She maintained the pregnancy for 32 weeks, 10 of which were spent hospitalized at UCSF due to preterm labor. The multiple birth resulted from in vitro fertilization, which was not conducted at UCSF.
Rupert Dusauzay is a Bank of America vice president. He thanked the doctors and staff of UCSF Stanford Health Care for their support and compassion for his wife and babies.
"The fact that these babies are in good health on their first day of life is due to the persistence and patience of their mother with the support of their father," said Patricia Robertson, MD, the obstetrician who worked with the family to maintain the pregnancy. Robertson is associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at UCSF and a specialist in high-risk pregnancy at UCSF Stanford Health Care. She said that the success of this potentially high-risk delivery also is a tribute to the teamwork of the doctors, nurses and staff of the UCSF Birthing Center working closely with the Neonatal Intensive Care Nursery, which is located on the same floor of Moffitt-Long Hospital at UCSF. The Dusauzays’ births are an unusual success story because Mrs. Dusauzay maintained the pregnancy for 32 weeks - which is long enough to reduce significant health risks - and all four of the children were in good condition, Robertson said. The average gestational period for quadruplets is 29 weeks, she said.
To the best recollection of doctors in the neonatal service, these are the first quadruplets born at UCSF Medical Center in at least 25 years. The quadruplets’ birth is highly unusual, even at a time when multiple births are becoming more common as the result of in vitro fertilization, Robertson said.
The mother underwent 10 weeks of hospitalization and medication to control preterm labor. The benefits of maintaining the pregnancy that long are clear, as evident by the health of the Dusauzay babies, Robertson said.
Only about one percent of in vitro fertilization pregnancies result in quadruplets or more children, she said. And quadruplets achieved naturally are even less common. "This is a very rare event," she said. Of the in vitro fertilization procedures conducted at UCSF, 22 percent to 25 percent result in twins and about 1.3 percent result in three or more children. The number of embryos used during in vitro fertilization depends on a range of factors, including the mother’s age and hormone levels as well as the quality of the embryos. As general guidelines, however, the UCSF in vitro fertilization program uses two embryos during the procedure when the mother is 35 or younger, three for mothers 35 to 39 and four for mothers 40 and older. The Dusauzay quadruplets were delivered by a team led by Sarah Kilpatrick, MD, associate professor of obstetrics at UCSF and chief of the obstetrics and gynecology service at UCSF Stanford Health Care in San Francisco. Ob/gyn resident Natasha Kahl, MD assisted in the delivery and in maintaining the pregnancy. Neonatologist Ronald Clyman, MD, professor of pediatrics at UCSF, is in charge of the care of the babies.
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