Mother's IVF quest for a baby boy delivers septuplets

GHAZALA Khamis already had three daughters, but was desperate for a son.

Embarking on a course of fertility treatment to improve her chances, she was delighted when she fell pregnant – with septuplets.

Now she has four boys and three girls – as well as the existing daughters – after becoming the proud and rare mother of seven new babies on Saturday.

And she will now be able to claim her youngest children are not just one in a million, but one in 3.9 billion, as these were the odds gynaecologists yesterday gave against conceiving seven times in one pregnancy.

Ms Khamis is still in hospital and has yet to see her babies, except on a television screen.

In a weak voice, the 27-year-old Egyptian told reporters from her hospital bed in the Mediterranean coastal city of Alexandria: "I saw them on TV. They are very cute. I am just waiting to hold them in my arms and breastfeed them. I don't know if I can do it to all, but I will try."

Her husband and other relatives are now trying to come up with names for the babies, said Ms Khamis, who comes from Beheira, a northern province of the fertile Nile delta.

The newborns, who weigh between 2.3lbs and 4lbs, are being kept in incubators but appear to be healthy, said Dr Emad Darwish, who delivered the babies on Saturday at El-Shatbi Hospital.

He said three remained at El-Shatbi while four had been sent to two other hospitals in Alexandria "because we do not have enough incubators".

Dr Darwish said: "This is a very rare pregnancy – something I have never witnessed over my past 33 years in this profession. (The babies] are doing well, but they still need a lot of care."

Dr Darwish added that Mrs Khamis was also in good condition, after receiving a blood transfusion because of bleeding during a Caesarean section.

He said that he decided to perform a Caesarean at the end of Mrs Khamis' eighth month of pregnancy due to pressure on her kidneys.

Khamis Khamis, the brother of the new mother of ten, said his sister had been trying to conceive more children so she could have a son, but her family was astonished when they found out that she would give birth to multiple babies.

He said that the babies' father is a farm worker who earns about 2 a day when he is employed, usually for only a day or two each week.

Mr Khamis added that Egypt's health minister has promised to give the babies free milk and nappies for two years, but the family is still worried about the long-term financial burden of feeding and taking care of a total of ten children.

He said: "What they need most is a dwelling to live in.

"I hope the government will give them an apartment. With the help of Allah, they will make it, but I think that it will be difficult."

Egypt's population has tripled since 1952 to 76 million people in 2006, according to the latest census.

This summer, Egypt's government launched a new campaign to raise awareness of the repercussions of explosive population growth. Earlier, in March, Hosni Mubarak, Egypt's president, blamed overpopulation for acute shortages of housing and subsidised bread, which have hit millions of the nation's poor.

Since the introduction of invitro fertilisation treatment 30 years ago, the number of multiple births has increased dramatically. But health experts say septuplets are very rare, and it is even less common for all to survive.

Meanwhile, in a separate report of multiple births, doctors in southern Iraq said yesterday that a woman gave birth to sextuplets, but two of them died because the hospital lacked the equipment to keep them alive.

"Two of the children died because of problems breathing," said Dr Ali al-Jabiri, who is in charge of premature infants at Al-Habboubi Hospital in Nassiriya.

BACKGROUND

THE first surviving septuplets, born to Kenny and Bobby McCaughey from the US state of Iowa, will turn 11 in November.

The first account of septuplets was to a 15th- century couple, Thomas and Edith Bonham, of Wiltshire, England. They were described as having "seven children at one birth" several years after becoming the parents of twins.

In August 1996, a 32-year-old British woman, Mandy Allwood, conceived eight foetuses and rejected medical advice to abort some of them. All of them died.

Fertility drugs helped an Italian mother conceive 15 babies in 1971. After four months of pregnancy, the foetuses were aborted.