Czech mother, 23, gives birth to quintuplets

- Daily Mail

A Czech woman has given birth to healthy quintuplets today - the first to be born in her country.

Alexandra Kinova, 23, gave birth by Caesarean section to four sons and a daughter, officials at Prague's Institute for the Care of Mother and Child said.

Doctors said the mother and her five babies have been placed in an intensive care unit.

The father was present at the birth.

Ms Kinova already has one son and he helped choose the names of his five new siblings.

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The four boys are called Deniel, Michael, Alex and Martin and the girl is called Terezka.

The family did not know what the sex of the all the babies were until they were born because two were hidden in the scan.

Zbynek Stranak, chief doctor at the neonatal section of the institute said the birth took place 'without any complications.'

He said the babies have a 95-percent chance to grow up healthy.

Ms Kinova, who is from Milovice, north east of Prague, beat staggering odds to conceive the quins without using IVF.

The mother-of-six did not realise she was carrying five babies until last month.

At first doctors said she was having twins but in March staff said she was actually pregnant with four children.

However, it was not until the following month that she finally discovered she was having quintuplets.

Ms Kinova told Czech news site denik.cz this month that she was in shock when she was told the news.

She said: “When we finally found a fifth head, I started to cry.”

The odds of conceiving quins naturally is one is several million, according to experts.

The mother said both she and her partner have a family history of twins.

She said aside from four months of morning sickness, she has had few complications in the pregnancy.

Ms Kinova said she has been able to sleep on her side and has not had any problems with her breathing.

And she also plans to breastfeed all five babies, as she did with her eldest son.

She told denik: “The first child I nursed for almost a year and a half and I want to breastfeed now.

“While I know that some will be on artificial nutrition.”

Ms Kinova said despite the best efforts of the doctors they still do not know the sex of all the babies.

She said: “I very much look forward to seeing how they will look. It's a great charm, but we cannot see anything properly - only a head or legs.”

The hospital planned to double the number of doctors and midwives for her Caesarean.

They said they have administered drugs to help speed up the development of the babies' lungs.