Gosiame Thamara Sithole and her husband Tebogo Tsotetsi, Picture credit: Thobile Mathonsi/African News Agency (ANA)
A 37-year-old-woman from Gauteng, in Pretoria, South Africa, has delivered 10 babies.
The mother of the decuplets, Gosiame Thamara Sithole,
becomes the new Guinness World Record holder, a few weeks after Malian Halima Cissé gave birth to nine babies in Morocco.
Sithole had two more than doctors had earlier detected during the medical scans – at a hospital in Pretoria, yesterday.
Her husband Teboho Tsotetsi said Sithole, who hails from Tembisa Township in Ekurhuleni, delivered her seven boys and three girls at 29 weeks into her pregnancy by a caesarean section.
According to Pretoria News, Sithole, a retail store manager, who already has six-year-old twins, said her pregnancy was natural as she was not on any fertility treatment.
“I am happy. I am emotional. I can’t talk much. Let’s talk again in the morning please,” Tsotetsi said.
In an earlier interview at their family home in Tembisa last month, Sithole said she was shocked and fascinated by the pregnancy.
She said she was in a state of disbelief when the doctors told her earlier this year that she was expecting six children (sextuplets) before further scans showed that it was in fact octuplets.
“Two others could not be detected initially because they were inside the wrong tube,” Sithole said. “I am shocked by my pregnancy. It was tough at the beginning. I was sick. It was hard for me. It’s still tough but I am used to it now. I don’t feel the pain anymore, but it’s still a bit tough. I just pray for God to help me deliver all my children in a healthy condition, and for me and my children to come out alive. I would be pleased about it.”
Professor Dini Mawela, the deputy head of the school of medicine at the Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University, who spoke to Pretoria News said Sithole’s case was rare and usually caused by fertility treatments.
He said the children would spend the next few months in the incubator because it was a “high risk” pregnancy.
“It’s quite a unique situation. I don’t know how often it happens. It’s extremely high risk (pregnancy). It’s a highly complex and high-risk situation. The danger is that, because there is not enough space in the womb for the children, the tendency is that they will be small. What would happen is that they would take them out pre-term because there is a risk if they keep them longer in there. The babies will come out small, chances of survival compromised. But all this depends on how long she carried them for.”
By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri