Big Births

Some interesting news from around the world this week. While the eyes of the world are on the Olympics in Beijing, two women in the middle east have achieved some amazing feats of motherhood. Ghazala Khamis, a twenty-seven-year-old Egyptian women, gave birth to septuplets this past weekend. That's seven babies - enough to field an entire water polo team. Amazingly, the babies weighed between 2.3 and 4 pounds each when they were delivered by Cesarean section at about thirty-four weeks' gestation. Khamis became pregnant with septuplets after taking fertility drugs. There are four boys and three girls.

In Iraq, a mother gave birth to sextuplets on Saturday, but two of the babies have died already due to poor hospital conditions. Their mother, Ibtisam Najim Abid, also used fertility drugs to conceive the babies. Two boys and two girls have survived.