Woman gives birth to nine babies

[tectonicplates]

Wow!

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-56994408

It doesn't have to be ivf - in fact it's quite unlikely. I suspect she took Clomid without adequate medical supervision (clomid stimulates your ovaries to release multiple eggs rather than a single one). Clomid is cheap.

This isn't anything to celebrate. The human body is not designed to carry nine foetuses at once.

That’s very true but no ivf clinic could ethically transfer nine embryos.

‘Octomom’ had 12 embryos implanted at once.

Perhaps the people talking about miracles (some on this thread) could reflect on the hard fact that even with twins, let alone nonuplets, there is a much higher risk of lifelong disability. That's a hard fact all over the world, not just in poor countries.

And then reflect on how well they think THEY would cope with that. Or with this number of babies at all.

Of course the health minister and the media and various other folk are talking about how joyful it all it-they are not the people who will have to bear the responsibility.

@toocold54

That’s very true but no ivf clinic could ethically transfer nine embryos.

‘Octomom’ had 12 embryos implanted at once.

Which was completely unethical and should never have happened. You’d have hoped lessons would have been learned since.

Celebrate don't 'player' hate
*
* WTF does that mean? We're not rappers.

@NiceGerbil

There's no indication this was not natural, although that is an awful lot of babies!

Sounds like with the media interest which should be lucrative and the government helping, hopefully she will be ok financially and get help looking after them etc

No indication???

I think the fact that there's NINE babies is a pretty good indicator

The first case of nontuplets on Wiki is from 1971 and therefore predates IVF, so it is possible. Obviously if it’s natural it’s extremely rare, but rare stuff does happen.

Wowsers!

Unlikely to be IVF as unlikely they would have aimed for 9 or 7.

Even if it was clomid still very rare to have 9 babies

I hope to goodness no fertility clinic has done this. If they have, what on earth was she thinking?

If it’s natural, I hope she gets all the support she needs because this will be an unthinkable journey for her.

Well, obviously, I hope she is supported whether it was natural or not.

@KeflavikAirport

The first case of nontuplets on Wiki is from 1971 and therefore predates IVF, so it is possible. Obviously if it’s natural it’s extremely rare, but rare stuff does happen.

That's Clomid-related. It was released to the market in 1967.

To not have had any fertility treatment at all, this woman would have had to have had 3 eggs drop at the same time (vanishingly unlikely) and for those three to divide into 3. So three sets of triplets.

Once again, this is nothing to do with ivf. IVF has low success rates because implanting embryos runs a high risk of rejection. A woman with normal fertility who takes drugs to increase egg release however, is very likely to conceive several embryos. In most situations a) it's not given to fertile women; b) the administration of the drug is strictly limited by doctors to avoid this type of scenario and c) the recipients are either women who have fertility problems or who have no partner so are using a sperm donor.

Any fertile woman who takes Clomid and has regular unprotected sex could produce multiple foetuses. It's not magical or miraculous. It's a misuse of drugs.

i read the couple already had 3 children so why would they take fertility drugs, Halima is only 25yo.

i read the couple already had 3 children so why would they take fertility drugs, Halima is only 25yo.

I have family in Nigeria, so not far from Mali. I can imagine why they would take fertility drugs. Could be hoping to conceive a male child, twins, or have a larger family. All of which would be valued culturally.

Maybe they didn't intend so many, but it's not incomprehensible to see why they might want multiple children.

Did she only have 3 girls and the father wanted boys?

I thought Octomom had 7 implanted then at birth they found another one. Might be wrong though. I'm quite fascinated by multiples pregnancies and started getting lost down rabbit holes while researching it. I found myself reading this article listing multiples born in the 1800s. All I can say is there must have been something in the water! Some families had more than one set of multiples. E.g. Quintuplets, then quads etc!

I would imagine she used something like Clomid which can cause several eggs to be released at once. It’s a relatively inexpensive drug.

One of the articles quoted a fertility expert who said that it would be almost certain that it was not natural; apparently many women there take things like clomid after having been on hormonal contraception for a time in order to get things started again. I have no idea how accurate that is, nor whether it was the case here, but it sounds reasonable.

Many of the photos illustrating some of the online articles were not of those babies, but other previous multiple births or stock photos - there were one or two that apparently did show a few of these babies. Maybe more have been released today.

I can't imagine how difficult it will be raising a family with 9 babies at once! And however many older children (I read one, but maybe more). I hope they have plenty of support, and are very very organised!

Hullo! This has been massive news in West Africa. There’s loads about the family, because people are fascinated. They are middle class- which makes them comparatively wealthy (they’ll be able to afford people to help care for the children). He is in the army, I think.

They are not ‘IVF-wealthy’ i.e. they would have been able to afford it, but only just. It’s unlikely they’d have had it. They have one daughter already.

You can buy fertility drugs, unregulated, over the counter, so she may have done that.

They played an interview with the dad on radio 4 today - he's in the army and they have one daughter. The babies are 5 girls, 4 boys.

That's interesting about taking Clomid to kickstart fertility after using contraception.

10 children overnight and at the age of 25, wow. I have 5 and that’s hard enough, I can’t even imagine 9 the same age! Good luck to them (they’ll need it ).

They were born at 30w gestation, which is pretty good for so many babies!

It's amazing that her body was able to grow so many babies and although it shouldn't have happened (fertility medication should have been supervised etc) I'm delighted for them that they seem stable.

It would be absolutely amazing if they all survive,but even if only 1 survives (longer than 6 days), it'll be a new world record.

I don't think there's anything to celebrate

@Curioushorse

Hullo! This has been massive news in West Africa. There’s loads about the family, because people are fascinated. They are middle class- which makes them comparatively wealthy (they’ll be able to afford people to help care for the children). He is in the army, I think.

They are not ‘IVF-wealthy’ i.e. they would have been able to afford it, but only just. It’s unlikely they’d have had it. They have one daughter already.

You can buy fertility drugs, unregulated, over the counter, so she may have done that.

That's fascinating to me, coming from the UK, that you could be well enough off to be able to afford a decent amount of help with the babies but not (or barely enough) for IVF. My IVF to have twins in the UK cost about the same as 4 months of nursery fees!