TUNIS, TUNISIA – A Tunisian woman is pregnant with 12 babies and is determined to deliver them all naturally despite the danger to the children, according to published reports.
Doctors are warning the woman that delivering the 12 children defies the odds and that she could lose all of them if she tries natural childbirth. One doctor is even quoted as saying the chances of just one baby surviving is one in a hundred.
Doctors say the woman is carrying six boys and six girls. They say the stress of carrying the children could cause her to go into labor as early as 20 weeks into the pregnancy.
It’s not clear if the mother has been offered what is called “selective reduction,” which allows doctors to terminate several of the fetuses in order to give the remaining children a better chance for survival.
The record for the most children delivered naturally is reportedly held by a woman in Sydney, Australia in 1971, but all nine children died.
