A 24-YEAR-OLD Chiredzi woman, Lizzy Moyana, could not hide her joy mixed with apprehension after she was blessed with quadruplets on Friday last week at Chiredzi General Hospital.
PATRICK CHITONGO OWN CORRESPONDENT
Her joy was that she managed to survive the harrowing 12-and-a-half-hour-long labour that started at Mabeye Clinic in rural Chipinge and ended at Chiredzi General Hospital, 180km away.
Her anxiety rose from the fact that she did not expect the quadruplets as she had only prepared for a single baby.
Moyana gave birth to her first baby at Mabeye Rural Clinic before she was transferred to St Peter’s Hospital at Checheche Growth Point, where doctors further referred her to Chiredzi General Hospital after realising that she had retained some babies in her womb. She managed to deliver the remaining three live babies at Chiredzi General Hospital the same day after a tiresome drive from her rural home clinic to Chiredzi Town.
Three of the babies — two boys and a girl — weighed 1,8kg each, while the fourth one — a boy — weighed 1,5 kg.
The sister-in-charge at the maternity ward, Langalihle Zamisa, said despite the long hours of labour, Moyana had a normal birth and that all the babies were healthy. She, however, said they were expecting to release the woman in two weeks’ time as they still wanted to monitor the babies’ health especially the one born with less weight.
“Normally the weight of the babies will decline from the initial birth weight and rise again in two weeks. So if the babies’ weight rises after the decrease to 1,8kg, that is when we will discharge them,” Zamisa said
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Moyana said she was now in quandary as to where to find assistance since she did not expect the four babies. She said she never went for a scan to establish the number of babies in her womb, but was shocked when she was told she had given birth to quadruplets. She told NewsDay on her hospital bed that she was a peasant farmer and her husband had left for South Africa to seek employment.
“I am happy that I have given birth to live and healthy babies, but the challenge that I am facing now is that I don’t have money to look after the babies.
Already I am failing to feed them all from my breast milk because it’s too little for them. My husband is in South Africa where he has gone to look for a job, but life has been difficult for the family and now it seems it’s going to be worse with the coming of our new babies.” Moyana said. She appealed for assistance from well-wishers.
Moyana already has two other children — a girl aged six and a boy aged three.
Three weeks ago, a Mbare woman whose background is similar to Moyana’s also gave birth to quadruplets.
