February

Main Content

Odds of four: "incalculable"

An adult stands beside a neonatal incubator, looking down at a newborn lying inside, surrounded by medical monitors and tubing in a neonatal care unit.

Published on Friday, February 14, 2014

By: Jennifer Hospodor

"There are more feet."

Those words, spoken by Kim Fugate's physician during delivery, first alerted her she was having quadruplets.

She and her husband, Craig, as well as the entire health-care team working on her case, believed she was having triplets.

The babies, all girls, arrived Feb. 8, just shy of 13 weeks premature. All the babies are doing well in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit of the Winfred L. Wiser Hospital for Women and Infants at the University of Mississippi Medical Center.

Dr. James Bofill, professor of maternal fetal medicine, said the odds of spontaneous quadruplets are 1 in 729,000. But in the Fugates' case, the odds are even smaller because their girls split from a single egg, meaning the siblings are identical.

"Those odds are incalculable," Bofill said.

An adult sits indoors on a leather chair, viewed from the side, with gray hair pulled back and a softly lit interior background.
A close-up of a forearm wearing multiple hospital identification bands and a medical wristband, with a small adhesive bandage visible.
A newborn lies on a padded surface inside a neonatal incubator, connected to monitoring wires and tubing, with medical equipment visible around the bed.
An adult stands at a neonatal incubator, looking down at a newborn inside, with medical equipment and monitors visible throughout the room.
An adult stands behind a neonatal incubator, viewed from the front, watching a newborn lying inside, with hospital equipment visible in the background.