Halima Cissé, 27, and her husband Abdelkader Arby, 36, from Mali are "absolutely delighted" to finally return home to Mali with their nonuplets after staying 19 months in an intensive care clinic in Morocco.
Their nine babies are currently the only nonuplets in the world and hold the record for the most children to survive delivery. They were born in May 2021 and stayed at the specialist Ain Borja clinic in Casablanca, Morocco where they were monitored. A close family member told MailOnline via email that the babies are all fit and everybody is delighted to be coming home.
World's Only Nonuplets Alive
The babies just broke a world record last year and now hold the Guinness World Record for the most children delivered in a single birth to survive. According to Guinness, the nine babies were born on May 4, 2021, overthrowing the previous record held by octuplets born to Nadya Suleman in the US in 2009.
After arriving home in Bamako, Mali, Arby thanked the Malian government which had been helping the family financially. Mali's health Minister Diéminatou Sangara said that the government will continue to support the family in upbringing the nonuplets.
BBC reported that the babies, consisting of five girls and four boys, were born by Caesarean section at 30 weeks. The girls were named Kadidia, Fatouma, Hawa, Adama, and Oumou, while the boys were given the names Mohammed VI, Oumar, Elhadji, and Bah. They weighed between 1.1lb and 2.2lb (500g and 1kg) at birth.
Given the rare circumstance that led to their premature birth, the nonuplets were at high risk of developing health problems. They stayed in the hospital for the first months of their lives and then were moved to an apartment where they receive round-the-clock care from the Ain Borja clinic.
On their first birthday earlier this year, their father told BBC that each one has a unique personality in which some were quiet, while others make more noise or cry a lot, and some also want to be picked up all the time. He said that their nonuplets had made them famous in their area as everyone was keen to see them.
Multiple Births Explained
Having multiple babies in a single childbirth nowadays is becoming quite common as more women are using fertility treatments and getting pregnant at an older age, as per Cleveland Clinic. However, multiple pregnancies also increase the risk of complications.
Typically, humans carry only one baby at a time but they could also carry two or more babies at one time. There are two main ways that multiple pregnancies become possible. First, the fertilized egg splits before it implants in the uterine lining. Second, two or more separate eggs are fertilized by different sperm at the same time.
These different types of multiple pregnancies may result in either identical or fraternal siblings. Identical twins happen when one egg is fertilized and then splits into identical embryos. They look like each other and have the same sex.
On the other hand, some multiple births could result in either identical or fraternal depending on the body whether it releases multiple eggs, more than one is fertilized and one of those eggs split after fertilization.
Several factors could increase the chances of multiple births, including getting pregnant over 30 years old when the body starts to release multiple eggs at one time, having a twin or twins in the family, and using fertility drugs.
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