Sextuplet birth at Castle Street Hospital

A sextuplet birth (six boys) was reported last Sunday (15) from the Castle Street Hospital for Women, Colombo, said Hospital Director Dr. Ajith Danthanarayana.

He said five babies are at the intensive care unit (NICU) of the Castle Street Hospital for Women, and one baby is at the Lady Ridgeway Hospital for Children (LRH) due to the lack of space.

"The children are living with a large amount of help, and bringing up these children is a huge challenge, but we have enough facilities to treat the babies.

"The mother took medicine for six years to have babies and finally delivered six," the family of the babies' mother said.

There should be regulations and medical ethics for artificial womb technology.

If more than one embryo is placed in a uterus, in-vitro fertilization (IVF) it can cause multiple pregnancies. This poses health risks to the mother and the babies. One obvious solution to improve implantation rates is to transfer more embryos.

A maximum of two embryos is placed, and that regulation has not come into effect in Sri Lanka.

However, this birth was caused by a number of embryo transfers, and this will inconvenience the family and the hospital.

Scanning reports said that the mother was ready to give birth to five babies, but during the delivery, it was six. All six babies were born at low weight. The babies weighed between 400g and 700g at birth.

After the delivery, the mother is in good health, but the babies are in critical condition. The babies are receiving treatment at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) of the hospital. Breastfeeding for these babies has started, said hospital sources.(Chaturanga Pradeep Samarawickrama)