Young Afghan Woman Gives Birth to Sextuplets: 3 Boys and 3 Girls
A young Afghanistan woman has given birth to six children at a hospital in Mazar-e-Sharif, producing the same number of children in her first pregnancy as women in her country typically average over a lifetime.
The mother, who Reuters reported as Sara Gul, gave birth to three boys and three girls late Monday. The maternity ward doctor Abdul Rauf Ferogh said that five of the babies were healthy, but the sixth one was underweight and is still in postnatal care.
The 22-year-old who is originally from the northern Balkh province said on Tuesday that she had tried for an abortion after learning that she was pregnant with sextuplets, according to Reuters, an action that highlighting the country’s poverty and unfamiliarity with birth control.
“I even jumped from a wall but nothing happened to them,” Gul told Reuters.
Doctors say that multiple births without medical fertility treatment are extremely rare, and the procedure is non-existent in Afghanistan.
Doctors said that the mother is exhausted, and that had they known that she was carrying six children, she would have come to the hospital at least several days in advance.
"Allah blessed me with six children, but I am worried about their future," Gul's husband Shukrullah, 27, told Reuters. Like many Afghans he is unemployed.
Afghanistan has one of the highest maternal and infant mortality rates in the world, and one in four children die before reaching the age of five because of the country’s ongoing problems with conflict and poverty, according to United Nations Children's Fund statistics.
The population in Afghanistan currently consists of 30 million people, and the country’s Ministry of Health estimated that it will double in about 15 years. The ministry has also made efforts to promote birth control despite resistance from Islamic scholars who say contraception is unlawful.
The Ministry warned that the mounting population growth will only stunt opportunities for economic growth in a country that is already one of the world’s poorest nations.
Although a 2010 survey revealed that Afghanistan has had improvements in declining rates of infant and under-five mortality, and the country is still one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a pregnant woman or a young child, according to the World Health Organization.