WHAT:

The UAB Harris sextuplets are celebrating their first birthday today. The UAB department of obstetrics and gynecology, in conjunction with the department of neonatology, is sponsoring a birthday bash for the Harris clan Friday, July 11. The party will give faculty and staff who helped care for mother, Diamond Harris, during her pregnancy, labor and delivery, and those who cared for the babies in UAB’s Regional Newborn Intensive Care Unit (RNICU), a chance to catch up with the Harrises and see how the babies have progressed.

WHEN:

Friday, July 11, 2003
3 p.m. C.S.T.

WHERE:

UAB Center for Research in Women’s Health
3rd Floor
1500 6th Avenue South
Birmingham, AL

BACKGROUND:

Diamond and Christopher Harris are the proud parents of Alabama’s first set of sextuplets and the only surviving set of African American sextuplets in the United States. Diamond gave birth to two girls and four boys between 7:27 and 7:30 a.m., July 7, 2002, at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

The babies ranged in weight from 1 pound, 3 ounces to 1 pound, 12 ounces and were born at 26 1/2 weeks gestation. UAB maternal-fetal medicine specialist John Hauth, M.D., delivered the babies.

During the past year, the sextuplets have matured like most infants, and all are now crawling and pulling up. The babies have had no major medical problems, and, according to mom, aside from one or two colds, their only visits to the pediatrician have been for scheduled shots.