Premature birth is not an unusual case. In the United States the annual rate of premature infants being born has risen a staggering 27% since 1981. In 2001, as many as 476,000 babies were born earlier than 37 completed weeks of gestation. As the preemies have less time to fully develop, it has consequently been the major cause of death within the first month. Even surviving the infancy would still carry some risk of having severe health problems for the rest of their life including cerebral palsy, mental retardation and blindness.

Although there are possible causes including a previous premature birth, diabetes, drugs, tobacco, alcohol or poor nutrition, and multiple pregnancy; there is no clear reason for preterm birth. Nearly half of all the births have no known cause.

Nowadays advances reached in medical technology and knowledge are giving a promising chance for premature babies to survive as there are more varied methods available. In 1995, however, an exceptional case happened to Heidi and Paul Jackson of Westminster, Massachusetts. While most people expected modern medicine and technology to be able to save their preemies, the Jacksons learned a more simple remedy for one of their twin babies: a loving touch of a sibling. After the story arose, hospitals in the United States adapted the technique and caused a revolution in the policies.

Brielle and Kyrie Jackson were born October 17, 1995. It was twelve weeks prior to their due date. As it was the standard hospital practice to place preemie twins in different incubators in order to reduce the risk of infection to each other, the Jackson girls were treated the same way in the neonatal intensive care unit at The Medical Center of Central Massachusetts in Worcester.

Kyrie, the larger sister, was born at two pounds, three ounces. She then began gaining weight with no difficulty inside her own incubator. Brielle, on the contrary, had many health problems. She weighed only two pounds at birth, and could not keep up with her sister. To put some additions to her slow gain weight, the oxygen level in her blood was low. She was also reported to have breathing and heart-rate problems. Her condition got worse and on November 12 it went into critical. She began gasping for breath. Her face and stick-thin arms and legs turned bluish-gray. Her heart rate was higher than usual, and she got hiccups, a dangerous sign that her body was under nervous tension.

Her parents could only helplessly watch; terrified that she might die and nothing they could do to hinder it. Her condition worsened significantly. “She was turning colors,” said the mother, Heidi Jackson . “She was getting really worked up. Her heart rate was way up. She was getting hiccups. You could tell she was just completely stressed out.”

Nurse Gayle Kasparian had attempted all she could do to stabilize Brielle. She suctioned her breathing passages and turned up the oxygen flow to the incubator. But Brielle kept writhing and fussed as her oxygen intake sharply dropped and her heart rate soared . In her despair, the nurse remembered a technique which was rare in the United States despite that it was used in parts of Europe. It was known as “double bedding” or “co-bedding” where twins and other multiple-birth babies are put in the same crib so they would lie close together like in their mother’s womb.

Unfortunately the nurse manager, Susan Fitzback was attending a conference in the meantime. There was no hope to get permission to try the method, as it was against the hospital policy. Yet Kasparian never gave up hopes. She was willing to take the risk, considering that the conventional remedies could not help.

“Let me just try putting Brielle in with her sister to see if that helps,” she said to the alarmed parents, trying to get their consent.

Not knowing for what else to do, the Jacksons agreed to the offer. Kasparian then carefully placed the squirming baby into the incubator holding the sister she had not seen since her birth. And then they watched .

To the amazement of everyone, Brielle’s condition improved as soon as she touched her sister. Shortly after the door of the incubator was closed, Brielle snuggled up to Kyrie—in which Kyrie responded by putting one of her tiny arms to embrace her sister in protective manner. Brielle stopped crying and calmed down. A few minutes later her blood-oxygen readings reached the best rate since she was born.

“Kasparian closed the door and Brielle snuggled up to Kyrie and she was just fine,” said Jackson. “She calmed right down. It was immediate. It was absolutely immediate.”

Meanwhile the nurse manager Fitzback was attending a presentation on double-bedding, in which she thought to herself, “This is something I want to see happen at The Medical Center, although it might be difficult to make the change.”

On her return, she was doing rounds that morning when Kasparian greeted her, “Sue, take a look in that incubator over there.”

She obeyed and saw the twins cuddled up together—and both grew healthy.

“I can’t believe this,” Fitzback said. “This is so beautiful.”

“Do you mean that we can do it?” asked the nurse.

“Of course we can! ”

Before Christmas that year, Brielle and Kyrie had eventually allowed to go home with their parents. Each of them gained some weight and considered to be healthy when they left the hospital. Even Brielle weighed over five pounds. They were only two months old at that time. “They’re doing fantastic,” Heidi Jackson admitted.

The story made national headline in 1996 as “Reader’s Digest” and “Life” magazine published a beautiful photograph, entitled the “Rescuing Hug”, where Kyrie put an arm around her sister Brielle to embrace her. It was touching to see the tiny sisters could already value an expression of love, even if they could not yet talk to each other.

Inspired by the miracle of siblings’ healing touch, doctors reformed their conventional thinking. At that time it was believed that twin preemies should be placed in separate incubators to prevent infections from spreading. Brielle and Kyrie, on the contrary, had proven otherwise. As the result, experts now agree that the threat of infection is far less compared to the benefits of the comfort and security gained by the presence of the baby’s twin. It then led many more hospitals to adopt the practice of co-bedding.

Children’s Hospital in Columbia, Missouri, first began co-bedding in 1998 when the parents of twins Meagan and Jacob Breid asked that they be placed together. Medical staff at the hospital agreed after reading studies from other hospitals. “Research indicates that co-bedded infants tend to have better feeding patterns and thus develop at a faster rate,” according to the University of Missouri Health Care website. “And, because they help regulate each others’ breathing, these infants also present improvements in respiratory control and heart rate.” The Breid twins soon showed immediate progress on their condition. And the hospital continues practicing co-bedding. Marquette General Hospital in Wisconsin also allows this technique to be used for multiple-birth babies. “Besides being more comfortable, they usually gain weight quicker and maintain body temperature better,” said Cindy Ampe, maternal/child nurse manager, as cited from the hospital’s web site.

In January 1995, the scientific studies on this case were begun. But the practice of the technique was widely used in the United States only after it was proven on Brielle and Kyrie Jackson. Double-bedding is nowadays preferred as it reduces the number of hospital days. Heidi and Paul Jackson, however, needed not any academic studies to find out that the then unfamiliar technique would help their baby. Brielle was doing fine, even after she was taken home. She was thriving, and still slept with her sister Kyrie—and they snuggled.

This has been originally posted here on August 19, 2005