Multiple births can range from twins to much rarer forms such as quintuplets and nonuplets. Statistics and records of these special cases provide insight into the phenomenon of multiple simultaneous births.
Quintuplets and Beyond
Quintuplets, also known as "quins" or "quints," occur naturally in 1 in 55,000,000 births. The first quintuplets known to survive infancy were the Canadian Dionne Quintuplets in 1934. Multiple births can go up to octuplets that have been born alive and healthy, such as the first surviving octuplets in California in 2009. However, the largest known natural multiple birth where all babies survived is septuplets in 1997.
Record-Breaking Births
A woman from Mali made headlines by giving birth to nine babies – nonuplets, which is extremely rare and has only been recorded a handful of times. However, a fact check concluded that a claim a woman gave birth to ten babies is incorrect; the highest multiple birth with surviving babies is the nonuplets. Cases of nine babies have occurred in Australia in 1971 and Malaysia in 1999, but tragically, in both instances, the infants did not survive after birth primarily due to severe health risks associated with carrying a high number of babies.
Fertility and Human Multiple Births
The most common form of human multiple birth is twins. There have also been recorded instances of triplets, quadruplets, sextuplets, and even octuplets, where all siblings were born alive. Triplets may result from a dizygotic pregnancy where one zygote divides into two identical fetuses, and the other does not, occurring if more than one egg is released during the menstrual cycle and each egg is fertilized by a sperm.