A 31-year-old British woman has defied all the odds to give birth to the first sextuplets — four girls and two boys — in the UK in more than 25 years.
Surrounded by a team of doctors and nurses, the woman delivered the babies incredibly 14 weeks earlier, the Daily Mail reported on Friday.
The tiniest of the babies, born on May 14 at 11.05 pm, weighed under 1 lb 5 oz and the biggest just 1 lb 15 oz.
The new arrivals were under the close care of experts in the neonatal intensive care unit of Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital.
Live births of such a high number of babies are rare and the birth of sextuplets is believed to occur in just one in every 4.5 million pregnancies. The next few days and weeks are “critical” for the siblings, who are dependent on an array of medical equipment and the devotion of experts for their survival.
Staff at the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals said they felt “privileged” to have played a part in the birth, which had been the subject of meticulous planning over several weeks.
Dr Kenny McCormick, consultant neonatologist, said: “The next few days and weeks will be critical. Babies that are born this early need a lot of specialist care. They are receiving round the clock intensive care and specialist nursing at the moment and their condition is constantly monitored.”
The last sextuplets known to have been born in England were actually delivered into a sea of publicity back in 1983. The Walton sisters were the world’s first surviving all-girl sextuplets, born in Liverpool to Graham and Janet Walton. —PTI
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UK inquest of 7/7 to look at role of spies
London : The inquests into the deaths of 52 commuters in the suicide bombings on London’s transit system in 2005 will look at whether failures by British spies and the police contributed to the attacks, a judge ruled on Friday. It is a victory for victims’ families, who want to know whether the bombings could have been prevented if the security services had followed up on leads pointing to the unfolding plot. “The scope of the inquest into the 52 deaths will include the alleged intelligence failings and the immediate aftermath of the bombings,” Judge Heather Hallett said in a ruling handed down at the high court in London.
Intelligence agencies had argued that such a wide-ranging inquiry could compromise national security, but Hallett said the security services must provide evidence. —AP