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| Friday, 22 May 2009 |
Sextuplets arrive in five minutes
Sextuplets arrive in five minutes
 |
pa.press.net |
A mother has given birth to sextuplets in just five minutes.
The babies - four girls and two boys - weighed between 1lb 7oz and 2lb 2oz and doctors confirmed they were not conceived through IVF.
Their condition in intensive care at a Belfast hospital is described as "as good as could be expected".
Friday's successful Caesarean section birth - which involved 30 medical staff - was 14 weeks early and is believed to be the first case of sextuplets in Northern Ireland.
Neonatal consultant Dr Clifford Mayes said: "This is both a happy time and a potentially difficult time.
"This pregnancy isn't the result of IVF. It is an extraordinary thing to have witnessed but you are also struck by the fact that there are little babies in intensive care.
"We have planned very carefully for today and today went as well as we had hoped it would. The care of the babies would be the care we would normally expect for any baby."
The birth of sextuplets is rare, occurring in about one out of 4.5 million pregnancies.
Midwifery sister Patricia Denvir was the lead midwife involved in Friday's operation.
"It is a very stressful situation both for our staff, all of the staff involved and also for the parents, but it's a situation that went very well. The mother was very composed - under a very stressful situation, both parents were very composed and they dealt with it very well," she said.