Sextuplets born in five minutes

Published on Friday 22 May 2009 23:38

A WOMAN has had six babies within five minutes yesterday, a doctor said.

The sextuplets are in intensive care after being delivered by Caesarean section at the Royal Hospital in Belfast this morning, Dr Clifford Mayes added.

They are doing as well as could be expected after being born 14 weeks early.

They were conceived naturally without the aid of IVF, the first case of its kind in the whole of Ireland, Dr Mayes said.

He added: "This is both a happy time and a potentially difficult time."

The babies weighed between 1lb 7oz and 2lb 2oz. There are four girls and two boys.

They are in intensive care, but are doing well and the mother's condition is stable.

Dr Mayes said: "It is an extraordinary thing to have witnessed but you are also struck by the fact that there are little babies in intensive care."

He added that there had been weeks of preparation, using technical experts from across Northern Ireland.

"We have planned very carefully for today and today went as well as we had hoped it would," Dr Mayes said. "The care of the babies would be the care we would normally expect."

Sister Patricia Denvir, the lead midwife involved, said: "It is a very stressful situation both for all of the staff involved and for the parents, but it's a situation that went very well.

"Both parents were very composed and they dealt with it very well," she added.

A total of 30 medical staff were involved in yesterday's delivery.

The best-known set of sextuplets in the UK is the Waltons, all girls, who were born in Liverpool in 1983.