Pregnant Malian woman who was expecting seven babies gives birth to NINE after medics missed two on the scans – and ALL five girls and four boys are ‘doing fine’
- Halima Cisse, 25, gave birth to five girls and four boys in Morocco on Tuesday
- She was expected to give birth to seven babies, an ultrasound originally showed
- Nonuplets are extremely rare and medical complications are common
- Ms Cisse was flown to Morocco to make sure the babies were delivered safely
A Malian woman has given birth to nine babies after medics missed two on her scans and told her she would have seven.
Halima Cisse, 25, and all five girls and four boys are ‘doing fine’ after a cesarean section was carried out successfully in Morocco.
Ms Cisse was flown from the north of the poor West African state to Morocco to make sure the babies were delivered safely after the pregnancy attracted the attention of the West African nation’s leaders.
Halima Cisse (pictured with the team that helped deliver her babies), 25, and all five girls and four boys are ‘doing fine’ after a cesarean section in Morocco
Moroccan health ministry spokesman Rachid Koudhari said he had no knowledge of such a multiple birth having taken place in one of the country’s hospitals.
But Mali’s health ministry said in a statement that Cisse had given birth to five girls and four boys by Caesarean section.
‘The newborns (five girls and four boys) and the mother are all doing well,’ Mali’s health minister, Fanta Siby, said in a statement.
The minister added that she had been kept informed by the Malian doctor who accompanied Cisse to Morocco.
They are due to return home in several weeks’ time, she added.
Siby offered her congratulations to ‘the medical teams of Mali and Morocco, whose professionalism is at the origin of the happy outcome of this pregnancy’.
Ms Cisse was flown to Morocco to make sure the babies (pictured) were delivered safely after the pregnancy attracted the attention of the West African nation’s leaders
Ms Cisse’s five daughters and four sons were all ‘doing well’, as was the mother, authorities said
Cisse was expected to give birth to seven babies, according to ultrasounds conducted in Morocco and Mali that missed two of the siblings.
All were delivered by caesarean section.
Cases of women successfully carrying septuplets to term are rare – and nonuplets even rarer.
Medical complications in multiple births of this kind often mean that some of the babies do not reach full term.
The first recorded case of nonuplets came in Sydney in the 1970s, although sadly none of the babies survived, according to The Independent.
Another set of nonuplets were born on 26 March 1999, in Malaysia to Zurina Mat Saad. Like the case in the 1970s, none of the babies survived longer than six hours.
In 2009, a woman in the US gave birth to octuplets – eight babies – with all surviving past birth, and by 2019, all had celebrated their tenth birthday.
In a more recent case, a woman in Texas gave birth to sextuplets – two sets of twin boys and one pair of twin girls – in 2019.