Nov 29, 2007 1:46 pm US/Eastern
Quaid Hopes Twins Will Be Home For Christmas
Actor And Wife Optimistic About Newborns' Recovery From Overdose Of Blood Thinner
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
After an extremely stressful few weeks, actor Dennis Quaid and his wife Kimberly are optimistic about their chances of spending the holidays together at home with their newborn twins.
To date, the 3-week-old twins, Thomas Boone and Zoe Grace, remain in a neonatal intensive care unit at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles after the hospital gave the twins an antidote to reverse the effects of an accidental overdose of a blood thinner, People Magazine Executive Editor Jess Cagle told Early Show co-anchor Julie Chen.
It is uncertain as to when the twins will be able to return home.
"According to Kimberly's brother, who we spoke to, who was very, very familiar with the situation, they're sort of being optimistic right now," Cagle said. "They're looking forward to Christmas. They're looking forward to getting the babies home."
Holding the babies at the hospital is difficult for Dennis and Kimberly because the twins are hooked up to monitors and IVs, Cagle said.
The twins were admitted to Cedars-Sinai to treat a staph infection that developed after they were originally discharged from a hospital after their birth, Cagle said. Because patients receiving an IV are usually given a blood thinner so that the IV doesn't clot, the twins were given a dosage of Heparin, but it was 1,000 times more than what was needed.
"The hospital has been very good about saying yes, this happened," Cagle said. "It was a preventable error. We are making sure we find out exactly what went wrong."
The long-term effects of the error remain up in the air, though it can cause major internal bleeding, Cagle added. He also said that giving babies overdoses of Heparin is not uncommon.
"There was another big case last year in Vienna," Cagle said.
Although the twins are the couple's biological children, they had a gestational carrier, otherwise known as a surrogate mother, because "Kimberly, after they got married in 2004, over the next two years had about five miscarriages," Cagle added.
"(It) was a very difficult time (for the Quaids)," Cagle said. "And then they found the surrogate. She had a miscarriage, as well, so they tried so hard to have these children."
(© MMVIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
