A woman, Halima Cissé, gave birth to nine babies on Tuesday, two more than doctors had detected inside her crowded womb, joining the small group of mothers of nonuplets globally.
The pregnancy of Cissé, 25, fascinated Malians and attracted the attention of its leaders, especially as it was the first known incidence of nonuplets surviving birth.
When doctors in March said Cissé needed specialist care, authorities flew her to Morocco, where she gave birth.
“The newborns (five girls and four boys) and the mother are all doing well,” Mali’s health minister, Fanta Siby, said in a statement.
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.
Nonuplets are extremely rare. Medical complications in multiple births of this kind often mean that some of the babies do not reach full term.
According to an entry in Wikipedia, a set of nonuplets born on 13 June 1971, in Sydney, Australia, by Geraldine Brodrick, five boys and four girls did not survive for long.
Two of the boys were stillborn, and the last surviving of the babies, named Richard, died six days after birth.
The set of nonuplets, five boys and four girls, born on 26 March 1999, in Malaysia, by Zurina Mat Saad, did not survive more than 6 hours.
However, medical science in the past two decades may have kept the babies alive.