1944 - Dionne Quintuplets Reach 10th Year

Published by Seminole Producer in Seminole, Oklahoma, May 26, 1944

(This photo was not originally included in the article, but was taken to celebrate their 10th birthday.)

No Other Quints Lived As Long

The Dionne quintuplets, who have broken all precedents by jointly surviving to age ten, are now entering the safest period of life, according to the statisticians of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. For the eleventh year -- beginning for the quintuplets on their 10th birthday, May 28th -- is the year when the chance of dying is at a minimum.

"In all five surviving so far," the statisicians say, "the children have jointly overcome aggregate risks normally encountered by one individual in living to age 60.

"Looking ahead, according to present average mortality conditions, the chance are 98 in 100 that the girls will all survive to 16; 68 in 100 that they will all reach age 45; and 20 in 100 that they will all live to celebrate their 65th birthday together. But actually their chances are much better than these average figures, because of the unusually good care that these girls have had and probably will continue to have.

No other quintuplets have lived as long as the Dionne children, and except for the recently reported Argentinian quintuplets, never before have all five of a set been know to live more than a short time after birth.

The very fact that the Dionnes were all born alive was itself rare good fortune, for the odds were heavily against it. The stillborn rate for plural birth is many that for single birth. Moreover, all the Dionne quintuplets overcame the hazards of permature birth, the leading cause of death among children under one year of age.

As is generall know, the Dionne quintuplets are "identical" quintuplets, all five developed from one ovum. This makes their total survival still more remarkable, for, as the staticians point out, "there is good statistical evidence that identical children have a poorer chance to be born alive and to survive the first month of life than fraternal children, that is plural births in which each child develops from a separate ovum."

The unfavorable combination of circumstances which the Dionne babies encountered, were to some degree counterbalanced however, the statisticians point out, by the fact that they were girls. "Females," they explain, "seem to be fitted than males to overcome the early hazards of life, and this is true in both single and multiple births; in the prenatal period as well as after birth.

Chance favored the Dionne quintuplets being girls. The ratio of females to males at birth appears to increase as the number of children born at one confinement increases. The statisticians explain, "for single births there are 94 females born for every 100 males. For twins the figure rises to 97 per 100 males. In the higher order of plural birth the sex ratio is reversed, and females are in the majority. For triplets there are 101 females born for every 100 males, and for quadruplets the ration is as high as 156 to 100.