Couple’s Early Christmas Gift: Twins

TARZANA — Robin Migliore plans to spend part of Christmas day lying in a hospital bed. But the holiday figures to be happy because her prematurely born twin girls will be warmly pressed against her chest.

“These are our miracle babies,” the 39-year-old Agoura woman said Saturday, holding tiny Rachel Lee and Danielle Rose against her skin, demonstrating an alternative neonatal care technique known as “kangaroo care.”

The twins were born eight weeks premature Dec. 6, at the Encino-Tarzana Regional Medical Center. Typically, infants born prematurely cannot be held by their parents for more than a few minutes at at time. But Robin, 39, and her husband, Paul, 44, are permitted by physicians to cuddle the babies in their arms for hours.

The girls have escaped the common dangers of premature birth, such as weak respiration and bleeding in their brains, according to doctors. Both should be home by mid-January.

“They’ve already passed the biggest land mines,” said Dr. James Banks, a neonatology and pediatric intensive care specialist. “These babies will be OK.”

“I talk to them and their eyes get wide open,” Robin said. “These are our little girls.”

After trying unsuccessfully for eight years to give birth, the Migliores turned to an alternative insemination technique known as in vitro fertilization.

The method--in which doctors grow an embryo in a petri dish from a couple’s egg and sperm, then implant it in the woman’s womb--failed three times. But the fourth try was the charm, Robin said.

In May she found out she was pregnant with twins.

“Whatever the doctors said, I did,” Robin said. “We didn’t even know if I would ever get pregnant.”

Several months later, however, doctors noticed Rachel was abnormally small and had a twisted umbilical cord, Robin said. Doctors suggested an early delivery.

“We were happy we were having the twins,” Paul said. “But when we found out we were going to go in early, it got scary. I was a little afraid for the babies.”

It is not uncommon for twins to be born prematurely, Banks said, though Rachel and Danielle arrived even earlier than expected.

Danielle was born first, weighing 3 pounds, 12 ounces. Rachel followed a minute later weighing 1 pound, 12 ounces.

Normal weight for a healthy baby is seven to eight pounds, according to Carol Greene, a neonatal nurse practitioner at the hospital.

The babies have been treated mostly conventionally in an incubator, Banks said. The kangaroo-care method has mainly been used as a supplement to allow bonding between Robin and the girls.

Each day the mother holds the babies against her chest for one to four hours. Her warmth helps the twins regulate their own temperature as they also pick up Robin’s breathing patterns, Greene said.

Premature babies are traditionally kept in incubators for several weeks before being allowed parental contact, Banks said.

But studies in the last few years have shown that in some cases contact can occur much sooner because babies can breathe and hold their temperatures outside of incubators.

“You can’t believe you have to do a study to show the mother can hold her babies,” Banks said.

The technique originated in Bogota, Colombia, about 10 years ago as an alternative neonatal care method used in hospitals lacking equipment such as incubators, Banks said.

In the United States, however, it is a relatively uncommon method, which at first was used mostly in academic facilities.

The Migliores will visit with family late Christmas Day. But first, they say, they will go to the hospital in the morning to pick up their best presents.

“It’s been an emotional roller coaster,” Robin said.