Pregnant woman’s record-breaking birth
A Malian woman who was expecting to give birth to seven babies at a Moroccan clinic left doctors in shock after she had an additional two babies and became the first recorded woman to survive nonuplets.
In a statement from Mali’s Minister of Health, the five girls, four boys and their mother “are all doing well”.
25-year-old Halima Cisse gave birth via caesarean section on Tuesday, May 4 in Morocco, having been sent to Morocco for special care according to Mali’s top health official.
Reporters from the Associated Press saw some of the babies wiggling their hands and feet inside incubators in Casablanca’s private Ain Borja clinic.
Ms Cisse had been expecting seven babies and was sent to Morocco for the births by doctors, under government orders, because hospitals in Mali are poorly equipped to care for cases of multiple pregnancy.
The clinic’s director, Youssef Alaoui, told Moroccan state TV Ms Cisse had given birth prematurely at 30 weeks, but is now in a stable condition after heavy bleeding for which she received a blood transfusion.
According to The Guinness Book of World Records, its current record for most living births at once is eight, and it is currently verifying the Morocco birth.
The current record-holder is American Nadya Suleman, who in 2009 gave birth to eight premature but healthy children.
Mr Alaoui said that Ms Cisse had not used fertility treatments as far as he was aware.
However, Yacoub Khalaf, a professor of reproductive medicine at King’s College London said such births would be extraordinarily unlikely without fertility treatment, and that multiple births pose several dangers to the mother and her children.
He said the mother “was at severe risk of losing her uterus or losing her life”, while the babies “could suffer physical and mental handicaps”.