Ethiopian Woman Welcomes Rare Set of Quintuplets After 12 Years of Trying

In Ethiopia's northern Tigray region, a 35-year-old woman delivered five babies by caesarean section. The mother said she had been praying for a child for years and was "overjoyed" to be "blessed with five at once." Hospital staff said both the mother and the newborns are stable, but the babies are being monitored in neonatal intensive care because of premature delivery.

According to the International Multiples Foundation, spontaneous quintuplet pregnancies occur in roughly one of every 60 million pregnancies. The rate of multiple births rose with the spread of assisted reproductive technologies before declining over the past decade as clinics shifted toward single-embryo transfer. Ethiopia's Ministry of Health said only three sets of quintuplets have been recorded nationally in the past 10 years.

Dr Hailu Tesfaye, a neonatologist at Saint Paul's Hospital Millennium Medical College in Addis Ababa, said quintuplet pregnancies carry significant risks for mother and babies. "Premature birth, low birth weight and pre-eclampsia are common, and these cases require extensive follow-up after discharge," he said. The family said the mother had received no fertility treatment and that the pregnancy was natural.