Medical staff at a hospital in Hanoi have succeeded in nurturing a pair of twins who were born in test tubes over three months before they were due, the youngest premature infants in the country so far.

Giang Thien Bao and his twin sister Giang Thien An were discharged from the National Hospital of Obstetrics and Gynecology on Tuesday after over three months in intensive care at the hospital.

The infants were born to a couple who live in the northern province of Thai Binh on December 5, 2014, around the 24th week of the mother’s pregnancy.

The little boy and his sister, who had been conceived in test tubes, weighed 600 and 500 grams at birth, respectively.

After receiving treatment and intensive care at the hospital for 93 days, the little boy now weighs 2.25 kilograms while the baby girl is around 2.35 kilograms, which is almost fivefold their birth weight, doctors said.

Their health conditions and indexes on hearing and sight are all progressing well.

According to Nguyen Viet Tien, Deputy Minister of Health, the fraternal twins are the country’s youngest premature infants to have been successfully incubated and nurtured to date.

He noted that around the 24th week into a pregnancy, the fetus’s lungs are typically not fully developed, causing infants to have considerable difficulty breathing on their own.

Overly premature infants who weigh less than one kilogram are easily susceptible to problems regarding hearing, sight, and mental capacity later.

But doctors have found no abnormalities in An’s and Bao’s condition.

Nguyen Ngoc Loi, head of the Infant Care and Treatment Center under the National Hospital of Obstetrics and Gynecology, said the twins had much difficulty breathing and faint heartbeats and reflexes upon delivery.

Nurses had to monitor them closely, as the newborns could forget to breathe on their own as their lungs were not fully developed.

Failed respiration for over 18 seconds would lead to irreversible damage or even death, Loi stressed.   According to Deputy Minister Tien, medically developed countries have managed to save and raise infants who were born when they were only around the 22nd week into a pregnancy.

Hospitals in Vietnam aspire to save and nurture 23-week-old premature newborns who weigh a mere 400 grams in the time to come, he added.

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