Bristol triplets set Guinness World Records for most premature birth and lightest combined weight
Triplets born at just 22 weeks and five days have been awarded two Guinness World Records.
Rubi-Rose, Payton Jane and Porscha-Mae Hopkins were born on 14 February 2021 with a total weight of 1,284g (2lbs and 13oz).
One of their world records is for the lightest total weight for triplets, while the other is for being the most premature triplets ever recorded.
Rubi-Rose was born first at 10.21am at just 467g (1lb), while Payton Jane and Porscha-Mae were born nearly two hours later at 12.01pm and 12.02pm respectively by caesarean section. They weighed only 402g (0.89lbs) and 415g (0.91lbs).
Their 32-year-old mother, Michaela White from Bristol, said the two years since their birth has been “stressful” for her and her partner Jason Hopkins, 36.
“It was very, very stressful in the first year that [the triplets] were here,” Ms White said in a video by Guinness World Records.
Mr Hopkins said the journey has been “mental”.
“The whole journey between finding out that there were triplets and then triplets actually being here was, I think, the quickest pregnancy I’ve ever known. It was mad,” he said.
Michaela White and Jason Hopkins with Porscha-Mae (left), Payton Jane and Rubi-Rose (right) Hopkins
‘Quite traumatic’ birth
Ms White said “the day of the birth was quite traumatic” after being moved from St Michael’s Hospital in Bristol to Southmead, where she went into labour.
“I didn’t see any of [the triplets] when they were born.”
All three babies were rushed into incubators and swaddled in polythene wrapping to act as their mother’s womb and regulate their body temperature.
The first 72 hours of the babies’ lives were the most critical, with each required to breathe independently for 10 seconds before the doctors could intervene with oxygen.
Each child was taken into the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) and remained there for 216 days.
“The NICU journey on its own, any parent who has been through it, whether it’s been two days or, as we were 216 days, it’s one of the hardest journeys you’ll go through,” Mr Hopkins said.
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Caring for disabled children ‘very, very hard’
The triplets were born with cerebral palsy.
Rubi-Rose has a mild form of the disorder while Payton Jane and Porscha-Mae have mobility issues and are tube-fed.
Ms White said the process of caring for disabled children is “very, very hard”.
“It can be quite challenging at times with all the appointments, the people coming in your house and doing physio with the girls on a day-to-day basis,” she said.
“It can be really challenging for anyone with disabled children, but me and my partner, Jay, just crack on and do what we need to for them.”
The couple have used social media to document their journey, earning them more than 10,000 followers on TikTok as @hopkinstribe.
UK
Urgent letter to home secretary over violence against women and girls strategy – as it omits child abuse
Ten child protection organisations have written an urgent letter to the home secretary expressing concern about the omission of child sexual abuse from the government’s violence against women and girls strategy, following a Sky News report.
Groups including the NSPCC, Barnardo’s and The Children’s Society wrote to Yvette Cooper to say that violence against women and girls (VAWG) and child sexual abuse are “inherently and deeply connected”, suggesting any “serious strategy” to address VAWG needs to focus on child sexual abuse and exploitation.
The letter comes after Sky News revealed an internal Home Office document, titled Our draft definition of VAWG, which said that child sexual abuse and exploitation is not “explicitly within the scope” of their strategy, due to be published in September.
Poppy Eyre when she was four years old
Responding to Sky News’ original report, Poppy Eyre, who was sexually abused and raped by her grandfather when she was four, said: “VAWG is – violence against women and girls. If you take child sexual abuse out of it, where are the girls?”
The Centre of Expertise on Child Sexual Abuse, which is funded by the Home Office and a signatory to the letter, estimates 500,000 children in England and Wales are sexually abused every year.
The NSPCC “welcome” the government’s pledge to halve VAWG in a decade, but is “worried that if they are going to fulfil this commitment, the strategy absolutely has to include clear deliverable objectives to combat child sexual abuse and exploitation too”, the head of policy, Anna Edmundson, told Sky News.
Poppy is a survivor of child sexual abuse
She warned the government “will miss a golden opportunity” and the needs of thousands of girls will be “overlooked” if child sexual abuse and exploitation is not “at the heart of its flagship strategy”.
The government insists the VAWG programme will include action to tackle child sexual abuse, but says it also wants to create a distinctive plan to “ensure those crimes get the specialist response they demand”.
“My message to the government is that if you’re going to make child sexual abuse a separate thing, we need it now,” Poppy told Sky News.
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Rape Crisis, which is one of the largest organisations providing support to women in England and Wales, shares these concerns.
It wants plans to tackle child sexual abuse to be part of the strategy, and not to sit outside it.
“If a violence against women and girls strategy doesn’t include sexual violence towards girls, then it runs the risk of being a strategy for addressing some violence towards some females, but not all,” chief executive Ciara Bergman said.
A Home Office spokesperson said the government is “working tirelessly to tackle the appalling crimes of violence against women and girls and child sexual exploitation and abuse, as part of our Safer Streets mission”.
“We are already investing in new programmes and introducing landmark laws to overhaul the policing and criminal justice response to these crimes, as well as acting on the recommendations of Baroness Casey’s review into group-based Child Sexual Exploitation, and the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse,” they added.
UK
Man and boy arrested on suspicion of arson after restaurant fire leaves two in critical condition
A 54-year-old man and a 15-year-old boy have been arrested on suspicion of arson with intent to endanger life after a restaurant fire in east London on Friday.
Three people were taken to hospital in a life-threatening condition after the fire at the Indian Aroma in Ilford.
Two remained in a critical condition on Sunday morning, according to the Metropolitan Police.
The restaurant suffered extensive damage in the blaze.
Two further victims are thought to have left the scene before officers arrived, Scotland Yard said.
Woodford Avenue from above. Pic: UK News and Pictures
Police are still trying to identify them.
CCTV footage seen by the PA news agency appears to show a group of people wearing face coverings walk into the restaurant and pour liquid on the floor.
Seconds later, the inside of the restaurant is engulfed in flames.
“While we have made two arrests, our investigation continues at pace so we can piece together what happened on Friday evening,” said the Met Police’s DCI Mark Rogers.
“I know the community [is] concerned and shocked by this incident.
The moment the fire broke out.
“I would urge anyone with any information or concerns to come forward and speak to police.”
Hospital porter Edward Thawe went to help after hearing screams from his nearby home.
He described the scene as “horrible” and “more than scary and the sort of thing that you don’t want to look at twice.”
He said: “I heard screaming and people saying they had called the police.”
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The 43-year-old said he saw a woman and a severely burned man who may have been customers.
Another witness, who did not want to be named, said he saw three “severely burned” people being doused by the emergency services and given oxygen.
“I can only imagine the pain they were going through,” he said.
On Saturday, the London Ambulance Service told Sky News: “We sent resources to the scene, including ambulance crews, an advanced paramedic, an incident response officer and paramedics from our hazardous area response team.
“We treated five people for burns and smoke inhalation. We took two patients to a major trauma centre and three others to local hospitals.”
The police investigation is continuing.
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