The pro vita Specialist Hospital in Tema has chalked up another feat by helping a 34-year-old trader, Mrs Stella Obeng-Sakyi, to be delivered of quintuplets.
Mrs Obeng-Sakyi had, for seven years, been looking for a baby after her marriage to Mr Alex Obeng-Sakyi, an employee of the Cocoa Marketing Company (CMC) in Takoradi.
Through in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) embryo transfer, two boys and three girls were delivered by Dr Joe Mainoo, the Medical Director of the hospital, on May 9, 2011.
The babies, who weighed between 1.1 and 1.6 kilogrammes at birth, were, however, kept in incubators for seven days because of their low birth weight.
In 2006, the Pro Vita Hospital helped a lady to be delivered of quintuplets who are said to be doing well.
According to Dr Mainoo, the new babies were fed with cups until four days before actual breast-feeding began because their sucking reflexes were not fully developed.
He said the weights of the babies had now increased as they currently weigh between 1.5 and 2.5 kilogrammes, just four weeks after delivery.
The woman and her 39-year-old husband had tried fruitlessly to produce a child until they contacted the Pro Vita Hospital last year.
In an interview With the Daily Graphic in Tema yesterday, Dr Mainoo said the woman and her husband had approached him for medical assistance in order to produce a child.
He said after initial tests, Mrs Obeng-Sakyi then underwent IVF treatment and was admitted at the facility for 34 weeks to avoid the risk of miscarriage.
The hospital, which was established in October 1995 as the first fertility centre in sub-Saharan Africa, had helped many women deliver twins, triplets and quadruplets through IVF, but it was in April 2006 that it helped a lady deliver quintuplets.
The hospital has become a centre of excellence not only for Ghana but also the rest of Africa, Europe, the Americas and Asia as people from various countries troop to the facility regularly for medical care.
Dr Mainoo was grateful to Nestle Ghana Limited, which, through the Ministry of Health, provided baby foods free of charge for the first quintuplets delivered at the hospital.
He appealed to governmental and non-governmental organisations and well-to-do individuals to assist Mr and Mrs Obeng-Sakyi to cater for the babies>, as it was difficult for them alone to shoulder that responsibility.
When contacted, the couple expressed their heartfelt gratitude to the Almighty God, the staff of Pro Vita Hospital, especially Dr Mainoo, and all well wishers for giving them their hearts' desire.
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