A South African woman who reportedly gave birth to 10 babies breaking the Guinness World record is doing well at a local hospital, but the newborns are still in incubators, a family spokeswoman has said.
“We are very excited as a family, because this came as a surprise and it’s a rare case,’’ Mathapelo Tsotetsi told local channel Enca Thursday.
She, however, declined to reveal the name of the hospital where 37-year-old Gosiame Thamara Sithole, a resident of Tembisa East in Johannesburg gave birth to the babies on Monday evening.
“In our cultural beliefs, babies and pregnancies are very fragile things, we usually don’t like focusing and disclosing such things, especially now that these babies are premature and still in incubators,” Tsotetsi said, when the news anchor asked her when will the world get to see the babies.
“Basically they are fighting for their lives as they are premature [born 28 weeks] and in incubators," she said.
The family spokeswoman said when Sithole went for her first antenatal checkup months back she was told she had six babies in her womb. But as the pregnancy progressed another doctor said she would deliver eight babies.
“But now that she has given birth, to our surprise it's 10 babies,’’ she said.
She also dismissed local government reports that there is no record of 10 babies born in a hospital in Gauteng province, which includes Johannesburg and Pretoria.
Tsotetsi also said she had not seen the babies and neither should the world expect photos soon, because doctors are not allowing access to the babies.
