Woman Gives Birth to 9 Babies. At One Time

If all goes well, Halima Cisse should be able to field an entire baseball team with all nine children she gave birth to on Tuesday. The 25-year-old Malian woman had expected to deliver seven babies, based on an ultrasound. In a surprise, she instead gave birth to nonuplets in Morocco, where she was flown in March to receive specialist care, reports Reuters. The pregnancy drew a lot of attention in Mali, and it was the nation's transitional leader, Bah Ndaw, who ordered the transfer, per the Guardian. Mali's health minister announced the births of five girls and four boys via cesarean section. "The mother and babies are doing well so far," Fanta Siby told AFP. Siby added that the family isn't expected to return to Mali for several weeks.

"Medical complications in multiple births of this kind often mean that some of the babies do not reach full term," notes Reuters. Though Mali's government said Cisse had joined a small group of mothers of nonuplets, the Times of London notes this is "thought to have set a world record for the most children in a single birth to survive." There have been at least two cases of nonuplets in modern history. A woman gave birth to nine babies in Australia in 1971. However, two of the babies were stillborn and the others died within a week, per the New York Times. A woman in Malaysia also gave birth to nonuplets in 1999, but all died within hours, per Sky News. A Mexican woman claimed to be pregnant with nine babies in 2012, though that turned out to be a lie, per NBC News. (More nonuplets stories.)