Woman in Houston Gives Birth to Sextuplets, Two Sets of Twin Boys and One Set of Twin Girls

Thelma Chiaka with (L. to R.) Ebere Ofor, Dr. Ziad Haidar who delivered the babies and Dr. Israel Simchowit. (The Woman's Hospital of Texas)

A woman in Houston gave birth to six babies on March 15—two sets of twin boys and one set of twin girls.

The six babies were born between 4:50 and 4:59 a.m. and the mother, Thelma Chiaka, is doing well, reported the Woman’s Hospital of Texas in a statement on its website.

“The Woman’s Hospital of Texas, an HCA Houston Healthcare Affiliate, which delivers more babies than any other Texas hospital, early this morning welcomed sextuplets, the odds of which are estimated at one in 4.7 billion,” the hospital said.

The babies weighed between one pound, 12 ounces and two pounds, 14 ounces. They are in stable condition and are receiving care in the hospital’s advanced neonatal intensive care unit.

Thelma named her daughters Zina and Zuriel and was looking for names for her four sons. In a Facebook post, the hospital said it is “honored to welcome Thelma Chiaka’s four sons and two daughters”.

More Cases

Meanwhile, in 1997, septuplets were born in Iowa to Kenny and Bobbi McCaughey. They were the world’s first surviving septuplets.

“It will definitely be different and weird, but I feel that it will be good for us to get out of our comfort zone and meet new people,” Kelsey, one of the siblings said after graduating high school several years ago, NBC News reported.

“I honestly think it will be good for all of us to be on our separate ways,” Kenny, another sibling, said at the time.

“I am not worried about not seeing everyone that much. We have been around each other the past 18 years. I am ready to be on my way, and I think everyone else is, too.”

Brandon, another one, said at the time he’s going to the U.S. Army.

“It will be a little different being without all my siblings,” he told the news outlet. “But it won’t be bad since I’ll have contact with them. I think I will have a good experience being on my own, with my new military family. I have been taught to work for the things I want, and to not expect others to do anything for me. That helps with military life because I will need to do everything on my own, with no help at all from others.”

The New York Times reported in 1997 that mother Bobbi ingested a fertility drug after she and her husband had problems in conceiving children.

“The pregnancy has captured worldwide attention as both a symbol of the ultimate scientific miracle and a cautionary example of the unwanted consequences of fertility treatments,” the Times reported at the time.

First Septuplets in the US

In 1985, the first septuplets were born in the United States, but several of the children died after childbirth.

Last year, the mother, 63-year-old Patricia Frustaci, died.

“With our religious background and all we had gone through to have kids, that just wasn’t an option,” Frustaci told The New York Times in 1985.

Frustaci’s children were born 12 weeks premature and had a number of complications, and one girl was stillborn. Three of the other children died after birth.

“There is not a day that goes by that we don’t talk about them,” Frustaci, speaking of her lost children, according to Fox News. “There is not a day that goes by that I don’t look at their pictures.”

From NTD News

The Epoch Times reporter Jack Phillips contributed to this report.