Parents of twins, triplets battle multiple cost issues

[Pelican Press 0]

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

Parents of twins, triplets battle multiple cost issues

Evie Matthews knew she had a family history of twins but was completely shocked when she learned she was pregnant with triplets.

“I was absolutely beside myself,” the Brisbane mum tells AAP.

But then the reality of the cost pressures sunk in.

From specialised prams, upgrading the car and finding baby seats that fit, and working out how to get three cots in a room with as many baby monitors – the logistics and costs kept adding up.

“There are so many things that you don’t realise you have to do,” she said.

Ms Matthews gave birth to her triplets at 31 weeks and spent two months in the hospital driving every day to be with them before bringing her miracles home.

Once they returned home, the shopping list began to grow and grow.

“We were going through 30 nappies a day,” she said.

Some of the costs included $100 out of pocket for colic mixture and once she stopped breastfeeding, her triplets were going through a tub of formula – around $30 – every two days.

But it wasn’t just the expenses.

Ms Matthews and her husband faced the pressure of looking after triplets with no family support, making for an emotional first two years.

“We lost our minds over small things,” she said.

“(The *******) would be crying and I’d walk out into the kitchen and sit down and cry.

“I remember my mum saying, ‘You don’t have time to cry, you just need to move on and carry on’.”

A new study of more than 1200 parents of multiples (twins, triplets or more) by the *********** Multiple Birth Association found that 70 per cent experienced significant financial hardship in the first two years after giving birth.

It comes as research shows twins cost five times more than just one child while triplets cost up to 13 times more.

The study also showed more than 87 per cent reported extreme exhaustion while 70 per cent said they faced significant mental health challenges.

Silje Andersen-Cooke thought she was trying for baby number two when she was surprised with triplets, something she could never have prepared for.

The chair of the *********** Multiple Birth Association says she immediately began worrying about the logistics and costs, not just the reality of carrying and birthing three ******* at once.

“The feelings you have straight away of just anxiety of how are you going to afford this when really all you should have to focus on is the physical demands of this pregnancy,” she told AAP.

Similarly to Ms Matthews, she immediately thought of all the things her family would need to buy.

“You can’t go to Baby Bunting or the local baby shop and get a triplet pram, you have to organise these things from overseas or find another triplet parent handing theirs down,” she said.

“It is a really complicated process and not one you can naturally prepare for.”

Ms Andersen-Cooke said there was a lack of support and information after leaving the hospital on how to care for three ******* at once.

“I couldn’t even access multiple birth breastfeeding information, there was no sort of guidelines for safe sleeping of triplets,” she said.

“Every sort of avenue you go through you feel like an abnormal species and that makes it so much *******.”

For many parents of multiples, the paid parental leave – currently up to 22 weeks per birth – is not enough time to support the family.

“Why couldn’t I get three sets for having three *******,” Ms Matthews questioned.

Ms Andersen-Cooke says there needs to be reform to paid parental leave to provide it per baby rather than birth, calling on the federal government to introduce the reform.

The pressures continue during the first 1000 days in addition to the financial strain, it is also the time burden on parents of multiples.

Ms Andersen-Cooke said it takes on average 28 hours and 12 minutes to look after triplets in a day.

“We expect mothers of triplets to do that on their own as their partner has to go to work due to the cost of living,” she said.

“That is way too much to expect of one person.”

For Ms Matthews, she felt abandoned after leaving the hospital having no government-subsidised domestic support to help her care for the triplets.

“We got nothing, I remember talking to a social worker and asking what could be an option for me and there was nothing,” she said.

“You leave the neonatal unit special nursery, which was amazing, but then you’ve got nothing else, you’re it.”

The lack of help became even more of a burden when Ms Matthews would need to go to the shops to buy more food given how much she was eating to make two litres of breastmilk a day.

“We didn’t have anyone to stay at home with the kids, so we would have to either go out to the shops with the kids or one of us would have to go get more food,” she said.

Just going to the shop 20 minutes away, Ms Matthews said, would take nearly two hours with all the loading and unloading of three *******.

Ms Andersen-Cooke has called on the federal government to implement funded domestic support to provide 240 hours of in-home help for twin families and 1560 hours for triplet families.

Parents of multiples often are told their “hands are full” but are forgotten by the system, Ms Andersen-Cooke said.

“It’s true, they are so full, but they are running on empty and they need targeted support,” she said.

This is why the association is calling on the federal government to introduce targeted support to parents of multiples in the next budget.

“We urge the federal government to take immediate action and implement sensible and straightforward reforms that will provide vital support to multiple birth families across the country,” Ms Andersen-Cooke said.

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

#Parents #twins #triplets #battle #multiple #cost #issues

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up