Twin sisters Mionni and Mioree spent three weeks apart after their premature birth in June, split between a hospital NICU bed and their mother's arms at home, before finally being reunited in the same room at Ascension Columbia St. Mary's Milwaukee Campus. Their story is one small piece of an unusual pattern playing out at the hospital, where staff have cared for four sets of twins and one set of triplets over the past four months.
The twins were born June 22 at 32 weeks, each weighing just 2 pounds, 13 ounces, according to TMJ4 News. Their mother, Emahriyah Jackson, said hospital staff offered her advice and pep talks that calmed her nerves before her cesarean section. Nearly two months later, both girls are approaching 6 pounds, per the same report.
Mionni was discharged first, leaving her sister Mioree behind in the NICU while she continued working on feeding consistently. Jackson, who lives about 35 minutes from the hospital, has been traveling back and forth to visit Mioree while caring for Mionni at home. Jackson said her daughters' progress has been beautiful, and described putting both girls together again as beautiful as well, the station's report notes.
A Hospital Unused to This Many Multiples
Susana Crespo, who has spent 22 years caring for the hospital's smallest patients, said this year has brought an abundance of twins and multiples, including a set of triplets. The NICU typically sees only a couple of sets of twins during an entire year, making the recent run of four twin sets and one triplet set in four months a striking departure from normal, according to the same account. NICU nurses help parents grow comfortable caring for babies connected to intravenous lines and other medical equipment, and staff emphasize that babies need human contact to help them grow.
The surge in Milwaukee comes even as twin births have become rarer nationally. According to CDC data, the U.S. twin birth rate dropped 11% between 2014 and 2024, falling from 33.9 to 30.1 twins per 1,000 total births, a decline largely tied to the shift toward single-embryo transfers during IVF meant to reduce complications from multiple pregnancies, as Axios reported in August. That national trend, however, has not been even: the CDC analysis found that while twin birth rates among White non-Hispanic mothers fell 15% from 2014 to 2024, the rate among Black non-Hispanic mothers rose 5%, climbing from 40.0 to 42.0 per 1,000 births.
Why Prematurity Makes These Cases High-Stakes
Multiple births carry steep risks of early delivery. A clinical review in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology found that twin pregnancies account for about 20% of all preterm deliveries nationwide, with roughly 60% of twins born before 37 weeks and 10.7% born before 32 weeks gestation — just shy of when Mionni and Mioree arrived. In Wisconsin, multiple births are nearly seven times more likely to be preterm than singleton births, and 10% of all births statewide were premature in 2024, according to March of Dimes.
Milwaukee County's numbers run even higher than the state's. March of Dimes reported that 12% of live births in the county in 2024 were premature, with 1.7% classified as very preterm, under 32 weeks gestation. That local reality underscores why a Level III NICU like the one at Ascension Columbia St. Mary's, capable of caring for infants born as early as 21 weeks with 24/7 neonatologist coverage and surgical suites built for multiple births and C-sections, matters so much to families in the area.
Statewide Numbers Put the Surge in Context
Out of 59,675 total live births recorded across Wisconsin in 2024, 1,988 were multiple births including twins and triplets, about 3.3% of all births statewide, according to the Wisconsin Department of Health Services. Against that backdrop, one hospital handling five sets of multiples in four months stands out. In February, the Obstetric Hospitalist Group reported that Ascension Columbia St. Mary's Women's Medical Center had partnered with specialized OB hospitalists specifically to improve outcomes for high-risk multiple gestations and emergency deliveries.
Long NICU stays are not new to this unit. In January 2025, staff celebrated the discharge of a baby boy who had spent 137 days in their care, the kind of milestone known in NICUs as a graduation. For families like Jackson's, the wait for Mioree to come home continues, even as her sister Mionni's steady weight gain offers a hopeful sign of what is ahead.
