In a rare incident, a 27-year-old Pakistani woman gave birth to six babies at a hospital in Rawalpindi. According to a report by Dawn, Zeenat Waheed gave birth to the sextuplets--our baby boys and two baby girls, in one hour on April 19.
Notably, Ms Waheed was admitted to the hospital on Thursday night due to labour pain. After an extensive operation, the woman gave birth to sextuplets. Dr Zafar said the mother and her six children were healthy with no complications. The infants are in good health and all of them weigh less than two pounds each.
''The sextuplets and their mother are in good condition; the doctors have however put the babies in an incubator,'' the hospital's medical superintendent, Dr Farzana, told Dawn.
The hospital administration expressed their joy over the arrival of the sextuplet and ensured that the family was provided with all the medical support and facilities during their stay. The babies will continue getting medical care at the hospital's neonatal intensive care unit until cleared to go home.
Live births of such a high number of babies are rare and the birth of sextuplets is believed to occur in just one in every 4.5 million pregnancies. A multiple pregnancy, in which a woman is pregnant with two or more fetuses at the same time, happens either when a fertilized egg splits before it implants in the uterus (as is the case with identical twins) or when separate eggs are fertilized by different sperm (making fraternal twins), according to the Cleveland Clinic.
Pregnancies involving three or more fetuses are extremely rare. They are also associated with a higher risk of complications than single pregnancies. However, multiple births have become more common in recent years because more people are using fertility drugs and procedures, such as IVF, to help conceive a baby. Fertility drugs increase the chances of a multiple pregnancy because these medicines stimulate the ovaries to produce many eggs.
The first surviving set of sextuplets was born in South Africa in 1974.
