Meet world’s first surviving nonuplets from Mali
Considered miracle babies, the world-famous nonuplets (nine babies) from Mali were born on 4 May 2021 and achieved the Guinness World Records title for the most children delivered at a single birth to survive.
The previous record was held by eight babies born to Nadya Suleman (USA) aka “Octomom” in 2009. Their father, Abdelkader Arby, told the BBC at the time of their birth that “it’s not easy”, although he was happy to see “all the babies in perfect health.” The record-breaking babies were born in Morocco by 28-year-old Halima Cissé.
Nonuplets are extremely rare, and until the arrival of the Cissé children, no cases had been recorded of nine babies from a single birth surviving for more than a few hours.
The five baby girls (Adama, Oumou, Hawa, Kadidia, Fatouma) and four baby boys (Oumar, Elhadji, Bah and Mohammed VI) were born prematurely via Caesarean section on 4 May 2021, 30 weeks into Mrs Cissé’s pregnancy. They each weighed between 500 g and 1 kg (1.1 and 2.2 lb) at the time of birth.
Doctors in Mali initially thought that Mrs Cissé was carrying seven children, but two more were detected after the Malian government flew her to Ain Borja Clinic in Morocco to receive specialist care.
Shortly after the birth, Mali’s health minister, Dr Fanta Siby, announced that “the newborns and the mother are all doing well.” In order to ensure their survival, the babies were immediately transferred to incubators and remained in the care of the clinic’s paediatric neonatologist Khalil Msaif for several months.
Their father husband Abdelkader, a sailor in the Malian Navy, remained in Mali during the birth to care for the couple’s three-year-old daughter, Souda. In October 2021, he was able to reunite with his family and release the first photographs of the healthy babies.
“All of them are getting on very well and are a joy to look after,” Abdelkader said at the time. Due to the risks associated with multiple births and premature births, the babies are remaining in the care of the clinic for a while, where their development could be monitored. They lived in a specially-equipped flat where a team of nurses were on hand to help at all times.
“We had to treat the mother before it was too late, to make sure there was no post-partum haemorrhage,” said Dr Rochdi Talib, President Director General of Akdital, the clinic operator. “Thank God, we had the technical resources and highly qualified medical and para medical staff; 32 people worked on this.”
In December 2022, aged one and a half years old, the world’s first surviving nonuplets went on their first plane flight. They travelled from Morocco, where they were born and lived for 19 months, to their parents’ home country of Mali.
And now, two months shy of their third birthday, the nonuplets have made their first trip to Europe, visiting Italy to appear on our televised talent show Lo Show dei Record. All nine children are healthy and developing well.
The nonuplets were too small to hold their Guinness World Records certificate when it was first presented to them in 2022, but they’ve grown significantly since then and they each now enjoy holding the award – even if that means having to snatch it from another sibling!
Source: GWR
Abeeb Lekan Sodiq is a Managing Editor & Writer at theafricandream.net. He is as well a Graphics Designer and also known as Arakunrin Lekan.
