In a rare incident, a woman gave birth to sextuplets – five girls and one boy – at a hospital in Chittagong city yesterday morning.
However, only two girls have survived the birth and are currently being kept in incubator at the neonatal unit of Chittagong Medical College Hospital (CMCH).
The children were delivered normally between 10:15am and 10:30am at Jameson Red Crescent Maternity Hospital.
The mother, Rafia Anwara, 25, is in good health, said Dr Rosy Dutta, chief medical officer at the hospital.
Talking to the Dhaka Tribune, Dr Pranab Kumar Chowdhury, head of paediatrics department at the CMCH, said the deceased children could not survive due to extremely low birth weight.
“If the birth weight of a live-born infant is less than 2,500g, we call it low birth weight. However, two of the six babies weighed 600g and 650g, which was extremely low. The life of extremely low-weight infants is always very critical and in most cases they don’t survive.
Our neonatal team is trying its level best and providing all medical support to the surviving infants,” he said.
Rafia and her husband, Md Yakub, got married five years ago. The couple also have a three-year-old daughter, who was born through caesarean section surgery.
Yakub is currently in the UAE as a migrant worker.
“Rafia came to the hospital at 7:30am today for regular check-up – all the way from Fatikchhari upazila, where she lives with her in-laws,” said Dr Rosy. “During check-up, she started having labour pain and gave birth prematurely a few hours later.”
Rafia’s pregnancy was less than 24 weeks; her delivery date was on March 10 next year.
Dr Rosy said Rafia had not received proper care during her pregnancy, which had likely led to the premature birth and death of four of her children.
“The mother [Rafia] did not have any regular check-ups; before today [yesterday] she consulted a gynaecologist only once – on October 2 in Fatikchhari. Each baby she gave birth to was underweight.”
Doctors attending Rafia said all six babies could have survived had the mother had given proper care.
They said she might have been deprived of the care she needed because of the conservative environment in her in-laws’ house.
