THE five surviving sextuplets born 12 weeks early at a North-East hospital were last night reported to be doing well.
The babies, two boys and three girls, were born to an unnamed mother at the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle, a week ago.
A hospital spokeswoman said the parents did not want any publicity and had expressed anger at reports speculating on their nationality. She said the father was Libyan, but the mother was not.
Last night, consultant paediatrician David Milligan described how a team of 14 doctors and nurses performed the emergency Caesarean birth in five minutes. The weakest sextuplet, a girl, died from complications.
Dr Milligan said: "It is the first sextuplets I have come across. They are all doing very well and are having a little bit of help with a machine that blows air down their noses."
The father is understood to have come to the UK as a sponsored post-graduate student with his pregnant wife and another child. Northumbria University confirmed the father was due to begin studying when the new semester begins.
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