Woman gives birth to 10 babies at a go
A South African woman by the name Gosiame Thamara Sithole at age 37 has given birth to 10 babies in one pregnancy. This breaks the Guinness World Record held by Halima Cissé, a Malian, who gave birth to nine children in Morocco.
Gosiame successfully gave birth to her decuplets at a hospital in Pretoria last Monday.
Sithole, who has six-year-old twins, said that her pregnancy was natural and wasn’t on fertility treatment.
Speaking to Pretoria News a month ago, Ms. Sithole said her pregnancy was “tough at the beginning” and she had prayed for a healthy birth, with many a sleepless night worrying about what was to come.
“How would they fit in the womb? Would they survive?” she asked herself, but was reassured by doctors that her womb was expanding.
Gosiame Thamara Sithole when pregnant at a later month
PHOTO CREDIT: Africa News Agency
A family member, who did not want to be identified, told the BBC News that Ms Sithole has had 10 babies – 5 via natural birth and 5 via caesarean section.
“It’s seven boys and three girls. I am happy. I am emotional. I can’t talk much,” her husband Teboho Tsotetsi told Pretoria News after the birth.
Most pregnancies involving large numbers of babies end prematurely, says BBC Africa’s health reporter Rhoda Odhiambo.
Multiple births involving more than three babies are rare and often the result of fertility treatments – but in this case the couple say they conceived naturally.
CREDIT: BBC