Here’s What It’s Like to Give Birth to Triplets

Singer Pharrell Williams and wife Helen Lasichanh have three more reasons to be happy, having just welcomed triplets, Williams’s representative confirms to People.

The babies arrived in early January, Vanity Fair reports. The magazine said the couple declined to provide the babies’ names or genders, but confirmed that mother and children are “healthy and happy.” The triplets will join Williams and Lasichanh’s 8-year-old son, Rocket.

Healthy and happy is good news for the family, as triplet births can be fraught with complications.

“Triplet births have a high rate of complications because triplets tend to be born very early, and are smaller than most other categories of infants,” said Dr. Rosemary Higgins of the Pregnancy and Perinatology Branch at the NIH’s Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), on the NIH website.

But what is giving birth to three little people actually like? There’s a lot you might not expect, even if you’ve given birth before. Most triplet pregnancies are preterm (premature), approximately four to eight weeks early (32-36 weeks of gestation).

“You may only get a five-second look at your babies before they are taken away to another room,” Scary Mommy reports. “It’s okay if you can’t hold them right now; you know they are where they need to be to get looked over really well and their needs met. You will see them soon.”

Lengthy hospital stays for the babies are normal, as one Mumsnet poster shared. “Had mine at 32 weeks 4 days. Consultant thought I would make to to 35 but my waters broke without warning and babies arrived 3 hours later. They spent 7 weeks in NICU/SCBU.”

“I had my triplets at 35 weeks exactly,” wrote another on Mumsnet. “Two of my three babies were in special care for 3 weeks. My third daughter spent 3 months in special care, but she had a more serious medical complication.”

Many doctors prefer multiple births to be performed via C-section as a safety precaution, and the pressure to do so can become intense. Blogger Birth Without Fear, who ending up delivering her triplets naturally, wrote, “At every appointment I maintained that I would go to 36 wks or as long as the babies needed, I would have three heads down and I WOULD have a vaginal birth. and at each appointment I was scoffed. Even my sonographer would smirk and say ‘I’d be impressed if you made 30 weeks.'”

No matter how the babies are delivered, carrying three babies is very difficult and hard on the body. By the second trimester, (13-27 weeks), most women will spend their time eating, drinking, and resting. And while the pregnancy can stressful or difficult, it does not compare to the task ahead: caring for three very needy, fragile newborns at the same time.

Related: The World’s Most Identical Triplets Lead the Exact Same Lives

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