“Newborns could weigh 500 grams, these are already being nursed”
In the West African state of Mali, 25-year-old Halima Cisse gave birth to nine children at once – five girls and four boys. The Ministry of Health of Mali reports that the woman in labor and newborns born by caesarean section are doing well. “MK” found out whether there had been similar cases before, and also learned from a fertility doctor how an African woman managed to endure so many offspring at a time.
Doctors believed that Halima was pregnant with seven children. With the help of the Ministry of Health of Mali, she was sent to give birth in Morocco, where medicine is better. And there five boys and four girls were born.
In 2017, a television report about the birth of 11 children at once from a 42-year-old Indian woman spread around the world. The belly of the woman featured in the news was indeed an incredible size. Allegedly, the Indian woman even gave birth to her children herself, without a caesarean section, “they came out of her one by one.” Whether this was true is not known. Two more cases of the birth of 11 children at the same time are known: in 1971 in American Philadelphia and in 1977 in Bangladesh, but in both cases, as reported, none of the babies survived.
Now the Ministry of Health of Mali has officially announced the birth of a live and healthy nine.
We found out what the reproductive specialist, general director of the Center for Reproduction and Genetics Margarita Anshina thinks about this. She told MK that such cases are known: in America, one woman gave birth to ten at once, another American, Nadia Suleman from Los Angeles, gave birth to eight children. “These children are already adults, they are all alive and well,” says the doctor.
“Of course, these cases are unique,” the reproductive specialist confirms. – A woman by nature is destined to endure and give birth to one child at a time, twins are already a rarity, this is with natural conception. Usually, multiple pregnancy occurs as a result of IVF, and in those cases when not one embryo is transferred, but several.
Most likely, this woman had IVF and had nine embryos transferred, and all nine survived. Or maybe twenty were transferred, but nine of them took root. There is an option that each embryo was divided into two, then, perhaps, five embryos were transferred, and they already turned into nine in the uterus. We can only guess, since the details are unknown to us.
Margarita Anshina emphasizes that in developed countries it is forbidden to transfer more than one embryo, in rare cases – two. In our country, – there is such an order of the Ministry of Health, – it is also impossible to transfer more than two embryos. But more often, doctors tend to endure one, since they consider multiple pregnancies as a complication of IVF. With multiple pregnancies, small children are born and the risk of obstetric complications is high.
– We had a case when twins were formed from each embryo from two transferred embryos, and a quadruple was born. Therefore, even when you transfer one embryo, this is not a guarantee that twins will not be born, Anshina continues. “And sometimes, even with the transfer of two embryos, pregnancy does not occur. Therefore, ordering the number of children with IVF does not make sense.
“Could an African woman naturally become pregnant with nine children?”
According to the specialist, the African origin of the mother could not affect the birth of so many children. African women are not more fertile than Europeans or Asians, this is rather a myth. “Multiple pregnancy is not a racial or national trait,” she says.
– How much could this pregnancy weigh with nine fetuses, and how much additional weight could this woman carry during pregnancy?
– With such a multiple pregnancy, children are born prematurely and prematurely. Today it is believed that a child with a body weight of 500 kg at birth can be viable and then develop normally. Even if we count at a minimum – 500 g one child, then taking into account the amniotic fluid, the weight of nine placentas, the resident of Mali had a huge belly and extra weight. And if the children are larger, it could be more than 20 kg …
At one time, MK wrote about the happy parents of the Merkulovs from Primorsky Krai, who are raising charming quintuplets, they are now five years old. All five, surprisingly, were born perfectly healthy. Mom Anastasia claims that there was no IVF in their case, she has twins and twins in her generation, her own sisters are twins, and, most likely, this played a role. Quintuples are born extremely rarely – only in one case in 55 million pregnancies. Every year, only about 150 births of quintuplets and about 95 births of gears are recorded worldwide.
