Tunisian woman expecting 12 babies: reports

A Tunisian woman is due to give birth to 12 babies, which could be a world record, press reports said Tuesday, quoting doctors.

The woman, identified only by her initials of A.F. and said to be in her 30s, is pregnant with six girls and six boys in the southern region of Gafsa, the Echourouk newspaper said.

"She is doing well and so are her future babies," it said.

Her husband added: "She is very happy and is anxiously waiting to see all 12 bouncing healthily in her hands."

The woman has had two abortions and the children will be her first, reports said.

Tight security has been put in place around the future mother and a lawyer has been hired to deal with the media.

Health officials and social workers in Tunisia have already announced their intention to get involved in the case, the Essabah daily said.

In January, a 33-year-old woman in California gave birth to octuplets, an event which was initially hailed as a heart-warming miracle.

But delight turned to anger as it emerged the woman, Nadya Suleman, underwent in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) to conceive.

Unease grew when it came out the single mother already had six other children, all born through IVF, whereby eggs were fertilised in a laboratory by donor sperm and implanted in her womb.

(c) 2009 AFP

   

• H0llywoodWh0re - Aug 18, 2009
  • Rank: 5 / 5 (1)
  As a social media journalist, this story has been a story I have tracked from it's primary break on Twitter last night. I feel this article contains misleading information and viewers may benefit from the correction. She has had two prior miscarriages before the current pregnancy of twelve. Miscarriages are termed, by medial professionals, spontaneous abortions. Simply the body rids itself of the fetus due to problems in the pregnancy (usually early on in gestation). Her plans are to have these twelve naturally, but is medially impossible, yet the laws there are not as the ones we have in our area. There is a 1 in 100 chance even one baby will survive as they will be born at 20 weeks gestation (she is already past week 16 due to the determination of gender). The earliest surviving premature infant was born at 23 weeks and there has never yet been a known set of twelve to survive.
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• otto1923 - Aug 18, 2009
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  It was only time before 'warfare of the cradle' would be fought using the latest in scientific advances. We are up the shitty creek my friends.
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