In 'extremely rare' case, Pakistani woman gives birth to 6 babies within an hour in Rawalpindi

In a rareincident, a 27-year-old woman from Pakistan delivered six babies in an hour ata hospital in Rawalpindi. As reported by Dawn, Zeenat Waheed welcomed the sextuplets – four boys and two girls – within a span of one hour on April 19.

Waheed was admitted to the hospital on Thursday evening (April 18) due to labour pain. The next day, she successfully gave birth to the sextuplets.

The doctor in-charge said that both the mother and her six newborns are in good health without any complications. The infants are all in good condition, each weighing less than two pounds.

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''The sextuplets and their mother are in good condition; the doctors have however put the babies in an incubator,'' the hospital's medical superintendent, Dr Farzana, toldDawn.

The hospital staff expressed their happiness about the birth of the sextuplets and assured that the family received all the medical care and facilities they needed during their stay.

The babies will stay in the hospital's neonatal intensive care unit until they are ready to go home and will continue to receive medical attention there.

A 'very rare'occurrence

It's very unusual for so many babies to be born at once, with sextuplets being a rare occurrence, happening only about once in every 4.5 million pregnancies.

Multiple pregnancies, where a woman carries two or more foetuses at the same time, occur when a fertilised egg splits before implanting in the uterus (resulting in identical twins) or when separate eggs are fertilised by different sperms (leading to fraternal twins), according to information from the Cleveland Clinic.

Pregnancies with three or more foetuses are exceptionally uncommon and carry a higher risk of complications compared to single pregnancies.

However, the number of multiple births has increased in recent years due to the growing use of fertility treatments like IVF (in vitro fertilisation) and fertility drugs. These treatments boost the chances of a multiple pregnancy by stimulating the ovaries to release more eggs. The first known surviving sextuplets were born in South Africa in 1974.

(With inputs from agencies)