A Malian mother who gave birth to nine babies in Morocco has created Guinness World Records . The organisation also shared a video that shows the nonuplets, five girls and four boys with their parents.
“Most children delivered at a single birth to survive: 9 - Adama, Oumou, Hawa, Kadidia, Fatouma, Oumar, Elhadji, Bah and Mohammed VI Cissé, With thanks to @groupe_akdital (Groupe AKDITAL), Ain Borja Clinic in Casablanca, Morocco,” the organisation wrote on their post.
This record was earlier held by eight babies born to Nadya Suleman of USA nicknamed "Octomom" in 2009.
According to the Guinness World Records, The five baby girls and four baby boys were born prematurely via Caesarean section, 30 weeks into the pregnancy. Each baby weighed between 0.5 – 1 kg (1.1 - 2.2 lb).
Halima Cisse, from the northern city of Timbuktu, gave birth to the babies in Casablanca in May 2021 and returned to Mali last week.
"Nonuplets are extremely rare: until the arrival of the Cissé children, there were no recorded cases of nine babies from a single birth surviving for more than a few hours," the organisation said on its website.
During the initial days of pregnancy, doctors in Mali thought that Halima was carrying seven children. However, the Malian government flew her to a specialist clinic in Morocco where it was found that the mother carried two more babies.
The mother and her nonuplets remained in the care of the clinic till the end of the delivery in order to mitigate risks associated with births of this nature.
“We had to treat the mother before it was too late, to make sure there was no post-partum haemorrhage,” said Dr Rochdi Talib, President Director General of Akdital, the clinic operator, according to Guinness World Records.