BHOPAL: Not twins, triplets or quadruplets, in a rare case, a woman in Sheopur delivered

(six kids) on Saturday. Both the female newborns died immediately after birth, while the four males have survived and are admitted to

(SNCU) of the hospital.

The first reaction of the parents after the birth was that of 'shock', said the hospital staff. The mother was not told about the death of two babies.

It was a “normal delivery”, for the 22-year-old Moorty Mali, wife of a labourer and a resident of Baroda village, 22km away from the district headquarters, who delivered six babies in the morning. This was her first pregnancy.

Civil surgeon of the hospital Dr RB Goyal said, “It was a normal delivery. Those who have survived weighed between 500gm to 790gm.

"The total weight of all the six babies was 3.65kg. Each of the two who did not survive weighed about 350-400gm, said the civil surgeon. "Birth of twins or even triplets are common but sextuplets is extremely rare,” he further added.

Sources said that the couple had first reached the primary health centre of Baroda. They were immediately referred to the district hospital. Accompanied by her husband Vinod and mother-in-law, Moorthy reached the district hospital at around 8.45am.

"All the babies were delivered within half an hour from around 9am to 9.30am," hospital staff said.

Dr Aruna Kumar, head of the department of Gynaecology at Gandhi Medical college in Bhopal said, "This is extremely rare, one in billion, I have seen just one case of sextuplets in the last 30 years.”

She also said that the rate of survival of such babies is very low as they are extremely underweight.