Malian Woman Gives Birth to Nonuplets in Morocco, Setting Potential World Record

While she thought she was pregnant with septuplets, Halima Cissé, a 25-year-old Malian woman, gave birth, by caesarean section, to nine children (five girls and four boys) on Tuesday, reports AFP. A world record for motherhood. In a statement, the Malian Ministry of Health specified that she gave birth by caesarean section, "to nine newborns instead of seven announced by the ultrasound results made in Mali and Morocco".

The Malian government has reassured about the health of the newborns and their mother. "So far the mother and the children are doing well," said the Minister of Health, Fanta Siby. On the Moroccan side, the spokesman for the Moroccan Ministry of Health says he is not aware of such a multiple birth in a hospital in the kingdom.

After being taken care of at the University Hospital Center of Point G in Bamako, this woman from Timbuktu had been transferred to Morocco on March 30. According to the Malian Ministry of Health, this transfer was justified by the search for "better monitoring of this pregnancy which is out of the ordinary".

The Malian Minister of Health said that the newborns and their mother will return to the country in a few weeks. Fanta Siby "congratulates the medical teams in Mali and Morocco, whose professionalism is behind the happy outcome of this pregnancy" and she "wishes a long life to the babies and the mother".