These are nonuplets! A Malian woman gave birth to nine children in Morocco on Tuesday, the Mali government said.
Mali’s government flew 25-year-old Halima Cisse, a woman from the northern part of the poor West African state, to Morocco for better care on March 30. She originally thought she was wearing septuplets. Cases of women successfully carrying septuplets in the long run are rare – and nonuplets even rarer. Moroccan health minister spokesman Rachid Koudhari said he had no knowledge that such a multiple birth had taken place at one of the country’s hospitals.
But Mali’s Ministry of Health said in a statement that Cisse had given birth to five girls and four boys by caesarean section. “The mother and children are doing well so far,” Mali Health Minister Fanta Siby told Agence France-Presse (AFP), adding that she had been informed by the Malian doctor who accompanied Cisse to Morocco. They will return home in several weeks, she added.
Doctors had been worried about Cisse’s health, according to local press reports, as well as her children’s chances of survival.
Mali’s Ministry of Health said in a statement that ultrasound examinations in both Mali and Morocco had suggested that Cisse had seven children.
Siby congratulated “medical teams in Mali and Morocco, whose professionalism is the foundation of the happy outcome of this pregnancy.”
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