Some weigh a pound or so, others just five hundred grams. But the nine twins born about ten weeks early by a 25-year-old Malian woman, protagonist in Morocco of a very delicate record-breaking birth, are in overall good condition. Their life prospects also depend on how their little bodies develop in the heat of an incubator, where they will have to stay “for two or three months”, according to the prediction of Professor Youssef Alaoui, director of the Ain Borja clinic in Casablanca where they were born. and remain hospitalized. There are rare cases in which numerous twins all survive. Those of two other parties with nine children, in Australia in 1971 and in Malaysia in 1999, succeeded for no more than a few days. Guinness World Record. On that occasion, the children were conceived in vitro. Instead, it seems that in this case it happened naturally for the five girls and four boys of Halima Cisse, the Malian mother (who already had a daughter) whose story is going around the world. And this makes the story even more unique.
“I find it hard to believe they are the result of a spontaneous pregnancy and that the mother did not resort to any fertility treatment. If so it would be a miracle. If, on the other hand, there was treatment, it is in any case a record “, is the opinion of Antonio Ragusa, director of the obstetrics and gynecology department of the Fatebenefratelli hospital in Rome, according to which” to become pregnant spontaneously with nine twins would really be what that scientists call the black swan, a metaphor for a rare event, from a statistical point of view extremely unlikely, and unpredictable. If instead – he added – there was recourse to insemination, the situation could have been of enormous risk of life for both the mother and the fetuses ».
She did not resort to any fertility treatment, according to Professor Alaoui, director of the clinic where the woman was transferred to the twenty-fifth week of pregnancy, also thanks to the intervention of the government of Mali, one of the poorest countries in the world. The medical team managed to extend the term to the thirtieth, and then a caesarean section was required, which involved 10 doctors and 25 nurses. Alaoui revealed that doctors also had to intervene to bring heavy bleeding under control. “The mother is now in good condition, she is no longer in danger – added the director of the Moroccan clinic -. We wish you and the children a quick recovery ».