WORLD-RECORD TWINS

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31976, 1 May 1969, Page 1

WORLD-RECORD TWINS

(N.Z Press Association! AUCKLAND, April 30. Girl twins whose combined birth weight of 31b lOoz equals the world record for the lightest surviving twins have been born in Auckland. They are the first children of Mr and Mrs R. Willis, of Haycock Avenue, Mount

Roskill. The babies, Hayley Jane (21b 3oz), top in the picture, and Lisa Maree (11b 7oz), were born on April 15 in the National Women’s Hospital and are both in a satisfactory condition in incubators. The authority for the birth records is “Guinness Book of Records.” The lightest recorded twins to survive were two girls, Heather and Jennie, born to Mrs Irene Sawkins, in the West Kent Hospital in Maidstone, England, on March 20, 1986.

Heather weighed lib 15oz at birth and Jennie 11b lloz. Their mother was aged 26. Mrs Willis, who is aged 30, was discharged from hospital on April 21, but the babies are not expected to be home before about July. They were born two months prematurely. “I’m nervous every day when I telephone the hospital about them,” she said. “They are so very small, but I know the hospital is doing the very best it can for them. “We were told they might be something of a record, but Ray (her husband) and I don’t care about records. All we want is for our babies to be all right.” Mrs Willis, an Aucklander, met her husband on a working holiday in Germany and married him there in 1965. He is a Canadian. They came to live in Auckland about 18 months ago. Lisa Maree, after dropping below her birth weight, is now loz heavier at lib Boz. Haley Jane now weighs 21b loz—2oz less than her birth weight. ‘ The lowest recorded birth weight of an infant surviving for any length of time was lOoz in the case of a girl born on June 5, 1938, in South Shields, County Durham. By her first birthday her weight had increased to 131 b 14oz. By her twentyfirst birthday she weighed 7st 81b.

Kitchen Fire.—A small fire in the floor of a kitchen at 11 Walpole Street about 3.28 p.m. yesterday caused slight damage- The occupier of the house is Mr John Hamilton. One machine from headquarters and one from Sydenham answered the call.