World-Record Nonuplets and Their Mom Return Home in ‘Perfect Health’ After 19 Months | “They’re All Crawling Now”

The nonuplets that broke the Guinness World Record are now at home in Mali after receiving care for more than a year. In May of last year, Halima Cissé and her husband Abdelkader Arby welcomed nine children into the world. The children, who were born at 30 weeks gestation, spent months in the hospital after that before being transferred to an apartment where they continued to receive care, per the BBC. The family is now back home, resting. "It's a lot of work but Allah, who gave us this blessing, will help us in their upbringing and taking care of them," Arby said after their arrival, per the outlet.

According to a statement released by Mali's minister of health and social development, Dr. Fanta Siby, Cissé, now 27 years old, was transferred to a clinic in Morocco just before giving birth to her children. Doctors at the time thought she was only expecting seven kids.

In an interview with TODAY last year, Dr. Youssef Alaoui of the Casablanca Ain Borja Clinic remarked, "So you can imagine our surprise when we discovered nine of them during the birth. Luckily this didn’t faze us, since we have one of the largest neonatal resuscitation services in Morocco. Our teams were ready to welcome these children into the world and able to treat them in the best conditions."

At the time, the newborns weighed between 1-2 pounds, and Alaoui predicted they would spend several months in incubators. The girls were named Kadidia, Fatouma, Hawa, Adama, and Oumou, and the boys were named Mohammed VI, Oumar, Elhadji, and Bah.

When the nonuplets celebrated their first birthday in May, Guinness World Records declared that they had achieved the record for the most live births. "Nonuplets are extremely rare, and until the arrival of the Cissé children, no cases had been recorded of nine babies from a single birth surviving for more than a few hours," the organization wrote. The kids were still being looked after by the Moroccan clinic where they had been born. 

Arby thought back on his time as a father to nine newborns as the family celebrated the significant occasion in May. "They're all crawling now. Some are sitting up and can even walk if they hold on to something," he told the BBC, admitting that it can feel "tiring at times." "It's not easy but it's great," he added, noting how grateful the couple feels that their babies are "in perfect health."

The father also noted how different the kids are from one another. "They all have different characters. Some are quiet, while other make more noise and cry a lot. Some want to be picked up all the time. They are all very different, which is entirely normal." Arby added that people in Mali were "very keen to see the babies with their own eyes" because they had gained fame there.

References:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-63955055

https://www.today.com/parents/parents/nonuplets-celebrate-first-birthday-rcna27337

Cover Image Source: Youtube | BBC