SYRIA: Woman gives birth to quintuplets

Record ID: 278697

  • Title: SYRIA: Woman gives birth to quintuplets
  • Date: 19th June 2009
  • Summary: DAMASCUS, SYRIA (JUNE 18, 2009) (REUTERS) HOSPITAL HALL VIEW OF ROOM FROM HALL ROOM NUMBER 209 BAREA' KRAYYEM LAYING IN BED BEFORE BIRTH, HER HUSBAND HAYTHAM SEATING NEXT TO HER HAYTHAM TALKING BAREA' SMILING (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) HAYTHAM KRAYYEM, FATHER OF QUINTUPLETS, SAYING: "I am so happy with this thing because suddenly I became the head of a big family. I wish
  • Embargoed: 4th July 2009 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Health
  • Reuters ID: LVA7TDTEHMNRQ88JBJPZZ4B4F7DP
  • Story Text: A Syrian woman gives birth to quintuplets, three boys and two girls in Damascus.
    A woman in the Syrian capital of Damascus has given birth to quintuplets on Thursday (June 18).
    The babies, three boys and two girls arrived by caesarean section after seven months of pregnancy.
    Before the birth, Barea' and Haytham Krayyem only wished for their children to be born healthy.
    "I am happy. Thank god. I wish they are in good health and I wish they became good people," Barea' told Reuters Television before she was taken to the delivery room.
    After having problems conceiving, Barea' and Haytham decided to try an assisted method of reproductive technology, In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF), in which egg cells are fertilized by sperm outside the womb.
    "The fertilization was successful and we have a good number of embryos," said Dr. Khalil Ibrahim Khalil.
    The quintuplets, weighing from 700g - 1110g were born healthy and will stay in incubators until each of them reach the weight of 1700g.
    "The situation is stable but babies are now under intensive care. We cannot specify their situation at all after two or three hours. We'll give the babies a medicine to help their lungs to grow and we'll watch them on monitors to see the oxygenation and their breathing. If the breathing became normal and they did not have any pectoral problems then we could move to the nutrition phase to see if they have problems or not. After that they can leave the hospital," said Ahmad Al-Sahhar, a paediatrician.
    While quintuplet births used to only occur once for every 50 million people, Syria already welcomed two sets of quintuplets in January.
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