In December 2022, aged one and a half years old, the world’s first surviving nonuplets went on their first plane flight.
They travelled from Morocco, where they were born and lived for 19 months, to their parents’ home country of Mali.
And now, two months shy of their third birthday, the nonuplets have made their first trip to Europe, visiting Italy to appear on our televised talent show Lo Show dei Record.
All nine children are healthy and developing well.
The nonuplets were too small to hold their Guinness World Records certificate when it was first presented to them in 2022, but they’ve grown significantly since then and they each now enjoy holding the award – even if that means having to snatch it from another sibling!
Their official Guinness World Records title is: most children delivered at a single birth to survive. The record was previously held by eight babies born to Nadya Suleman (USA) aka “Octomom” in 2009.
The nonuplets’ mother, Halima Cissé, admitted that it’s not easy putting all her children to bed each night, but they can be coerced with cuddles: “We cuddle them so they can sleep; they really like cuddles to sleep,” she said.
Until the arrival of the Cissé children, there had been no recorded cases of nonuplets surviving more than a few hours after birth.
The Cissé nonuplets were born prematurely via Caesarean section on 4 May 2021, 30 weeks into the pregnancy. Each baby weighed between 0.5–1 kg (1.1–2.2 lb).
The five girls were named Adama, Oumou, Hawa, Kadidia, and Fatouma; the four boys were named Oumar, Elhadji, Bah and Mohammed VI.
Doctors in Mali first thought that Halima was having septuplets, but two additional babies were detected after the Malian government flew her to a specialist clinic in Morocco.
After being born, the babies were immediately transferred to incubators and required round-the-clock care for several months.
graphic.com
