A woman from Mali has given birth to nine children, two more than she expected. According to the country's Ministry of Health, ultrasounds revealed only seven children and the 25-year-old father and mother, as well as everyone else, were surprised when nine children were born.
Ultrasounds done in Mali and Morocco showed that Halima Cisse was pregnant with seven children. but on Tuesday, she gave birth to 5 daughters and 4 sons. Cisse was admitted to a Moroccan clinic after a 2-week stay in a hospital in the Malian capital, Bamako.
Both the mother and the newborn are in very good health.
Cisse's pregnancy received a lot of attention in Mali, even though it was thought she was carrying only 7 children in her womb. Doctors in West Africa were concerned about her well-being and the chances of the babies surviving, so the government intervened. After a 2-week stay at a hospital in the Mali capital, Bamako, the decision was made to relocate Cisse to Morocco on March 30th. After 5 weeks at the Moroccan clinic, she was born by cesarean section on Tuesday. Cisse was 25 weeks pregnant when she was hospitalized and doctors had managed to extend her pregnancy to 30 weeks.
Halima Cisse's husband, Adjudant Kader Arby, is in Mali with the couple's eldest daughter, but he says he has been in constant contact with his wife in Morocco and is not worried about the future of the family.
"God gave us these children. He is the one who decides what will happen to them. I do not worry about that. When the Almighty does something, he knows why," he told BBC Afrique. "Everyone called me! The Malian authorities called me to express their joy. I thank them ... The president also called me."
Multiple births are rare and most of them are as a result of in vitro fertilization treatment.
According to Guinness World Records, the record for most children born in a single birth so far was held by Nadya Suleman, who in 2009 gave birth to 6 boys and 2 girls in California.
Source: BBC and CNN
