“The children say ‘mom’ and ‘dad,’ as well as each other’s names, and also know the names of their daycare friends. They walk well, and the three boys are active enough to kick and throw a ball.”
Quintuplets born at 27 weeks of gestation as extremely premature infants, who received widespread public support, have been confirmed to show age-appropriate development in a developmental assessment at a corrected age of 18 months.
The Catholic University of Korea Seoul St. Mary’s Hospital announced on the 29th that the quintuplets—Saehim, Saechan, Saegang, Saebyeol, and Saebom—visited St. Nicholas Children’s Hospital on the 25th for a regular developmental checkup.
The quintuplets were born at 27 weeks and received intensive care in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) for three to six months after birth. With dedicated medical treatment and parental care, they have grown healthily.
On this day, Professor Park Hye-jung of pediatric rehabilitation medicine conducted a comprehensive evaluation of motor, cognitive, and language development based on corrected age.
Corrected age is used for premature infants to assess developmental progress by subtracting the number of weeks born early from chronological age.
The professor examined vocabulary expression, pointing behavior toward objects of interest, and stable walking ability to determine whether the children were developing appropriately for their age.
The parents said, “The children now say basic words such as ‘mom’ and ‘dad,’ call each other by name, and even recognize the names of their daycare friends. They walk well, and the three boys are very active, able to kick and throw a ball.”
After observing the children walking steadily toward their parents and interacting naturally, the professor said continued developmental monitoring is important for premature infants and noted that the quintuplets are growing at their own pace in a healthy way.
The children also reunited with the neonatal intensive care unit medical staff who had cared for them immediately after birth.
Once small enough to fit in incubators, the children have now grown to the point where they can walk independently, and the medical staff were visibly moved by their healthy development.
One staff member said, “It is very rewarding to see all five children walking well and growing healthily.”
The quintuplets are Korea’s first naturally conceived quintuplets and drew public attention from birth. They also appeared on KBS 1TV’s Human Theater in an episode titled “Thank You, Quintuplets,” which covered pregnancy, birth, and parenting.
Meanwhile, as high-risk pregnancies and premature births increase due to older maternal age, infertility treatments, and multiple pregnancies, the importance of specialized maternal and neonatal care continues to grow.
Seoul St. Mary’s Hospital, designated as a regional maternal-fetal medical center by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, provides integrated care from pregnancy and childbirth through postpartum care and neonatal intensive treatment.
The hospital operates a continuous care system linking neonatal intensive care with St. Nicholas Children’s Hospital, allowing long-term developmental monitoring from infancy through adolescence within a single medical system.