When a tear in her uterus threatened their mom’s life, twins Ayden and Arley Bowles had to be born 15 weeks prematurely in early February.
Their mother, Toni Lacey, of Norfolk, England, recently had lost another baby to miscarriage and worried that her premature sons would not survive, according to The Mirror. But months later, the twins are improving and soon could be well enough to go home from the hospital.
“They’re my miracle babies and my rainbow babies because I had them after my miscarriage,” Lacey said.
The 27-year-old became pregnant with the twins a few months after she miscarried another baby in July 2022. Lacey, who also is the mother of two older boys, said her pregnancy progressed normally at first. Then, in January, she was diagnosed with uterine dehiscence, or a tear in her uterine wall, according to the report.
Lacey spent three weeks in the hospital as doctors monitored her and her unborn sons, hoping to save all three of their lives. Then, one evening, she said her pain grew much worse.
“The tear had basically doubled in size overnight, and they were worried that one of the babies was going to go through it,” she told The Mirror. “The sac that they were in was bulging through the tear, so there was a risk of it rupturing, which was why they delivered them so early. It was really scary and horrible. It was just a worry of whether they were actually going to survive or not with them being so early.”
In early February, Ayden was born weighing 1.6 pounds and Arley weighing 1.5 pounds. The twins were so small and their skin was so thin that doctors wrapped them in plastic bags to keep them warm, according to the report.
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“The doctors were honest with us and warned us that they might not survive, that it was going to be a really long journey and that it was going to be difficult,” she said.
“The doctor was saying how small they were, that their skin was literally like paper,” Lacey continued. “… They were literally tiny. My hand would cover their whole body when they were in the incubators. One of their whole hands barely fitted around their dad’s one finger.”
In the weeks that followed, both boys fought through numerous health problems, which is common with very premature babies.
Here’s more from the report:
Arley was diagnosed with necrotising enterocolitis, a serious condition where tissue in the bowel becomes inflamed, and had his first surgery at just four days old.
Ayden also has a grade four bleed on his brain and they’re awaiting to see the full extent of any damage it’s caused.
Since then, their mother said their health has been improving. Both Ayden and Arley remain in the hospital, but their mother hopes that they will be well enough to go home soon.
“I’m looking forward to finally having them home and hoping that they will be in the next couple of months,” she said. “I’d tell other mums with premature babies that may be struggling to always look at the positives and to look forward [to] what you’ve got to look forward to.”
Modern medical advances are enabling younger and smaller premature babies to survive and thrive. The smallest recorded surviving baby weighed less than 9 ounces at birth in California. The earliest known premature baby to survive outside the womb was born at 21 weeks and four days of pregnancy. In 2017, the journal Pediatrics highlighted the girl’s survival story.
Another set of twins, Adiah and Adrial Nadarajah, of Ontario, Canada, recently were awarded the Guinness Book of World Records title as the youngest premature twins to survive. Now 1 year old, the twins were born at exactly 22 weeks of pregnancy in 2022 and considered “non-viable.” Their parents, who are devout Christians, said they “prayed hard” and put their faith in God for their twins.
Meanwhile, research shows modern medical advances are producing better outcomes for very premature babies.
Recent studies from Duke University and the New England Journal of Medicine have found that a growing percent of premature infants are surviving as early as 22 weeks of pregnancy. The research prompted the British Association of Medicine to issue new guidelines encouraging medical treatment for babies born at 22 weeks of pregnancy. Previously, the guidelines did not recommend treatment until 24 weeks.
