Hi, Five : Births: Healthy quintuplets are born to West Hills woman. The parents lost their Canoga Park condo in the Northridge quake.

WOODLAND HILLS —  A West Hills woman, who worked in fast-food restaurants and lost her home and everything she owned in the Northridge earthquake, gave birth to quintuplets Thursday.

Marcella Quezada, 26, who doctors said took fertility drugs, gave birth to two boys and three girls, four weeks prematurely, at Kaiser Permanente in Woodland Hills.

Even before she had a chance to see her babies after the Cesarean delivery, she expressed concern about how she and her husband, a cook, will provide for them, hospital officials said.

“What they need most is a van,” said Fran Hodes, of the hospital’s social services department. Hodes added that Mead Johnson, a baby formula company that heard of the impending birth through hospital contacts, will be donating formula, and the hospital is not charging for the long, complicated prenatal care and delivery.

The babies were delivered between 1:15 and 1:19 p.m. Thursday, doctors said. The first was a 3-pound, 10-ounce boy, followed by a 3-pound, 11-ounce boy, then a 2-pound, 2-ounce girl, a 3-pound, 1-ounce girl and, finally, a 3-pound, 2-ounce girl.

Although they haven’t been named individually, their parents have picked out the names Andrew, Raymond, Tiffany, Kimberly and Patricia, nurses said.

“They are all on room air”--not on respirators--”and are breathing by themselves,” said neonatologist Michael Tabak, who delivered the first of the five.

A 26-person birthing team, made up of five neonatologists, seven obstetricians, two anesthesiologists and an assortment of nurses and other assistants, handled the delivery, the hospital’s first quintuplets.

The new mother was “resting comfortably” just hours after the surgery, but was still too groggy to be interviewed, a hospital spokeswoman said.

“For premature babies, they are perfect babies,” said Thomas Sherry, director of the nursery. “I’ve done a number of triplets, no quads, and I’ll probably never see this again.”

The fertility drugs Quezada took to get pregnant can sometimes cause multiple-fetus pregnancies, Sherry said. He explained that the odds of quintuplet births occurring naturally is 1 in 50 million to 80 million, and even with the drugs, Quezada’s case is “still very, very, very rare.”

Quezada, nonetheless, “was very calm,” when an ultrasound test early in the pregnancy revealed the presence of five fetuses, said Patricia Schmidt, a specialist in high-risk births.

Schmidt monitored Quezada from her eighth week of pregnancy until delivery in the 32nd week, and the quint Patricia will be named in her honor.

The risks involved included the possible loss of the children and high blood pressure in the mother, Schmidt said. To prevent such complications, Quezada has been hospitalized since November, but will be able to go home in as few as three days, Schmidt said.

As a result of her long hospitalization, Quezada had to quit her job at a Carl’s Jr. restaurant, according to her father, Mario Lopez. Before that, she had worked at a McDonald’s, he said.

She and her husband, Ramon, 24, lost their condominium in Canoga Park and all their possessions in last year’s quake, he said.

“They lost everything. We are inside a hole. But I’m happy with the quintuplets. We need them right now. Probably God sent them as a new hope,” Lopez said.

Hospital officials said that public donations of things the couple will need--including diapers, clothes, cribs and car seats--are being handled by the Church at Rocky Peak in Chatsworth at (818) 709-0113 Ext. 174.