Another strange birth took place in Egypt after a woman successfully gave birth to septuplets early on Saturday in the coastal city of Alexandria, a hospital director said.Ghazala Khamis, 27, is stable though she did require a blood transfusion during the caesarian section due to bleeding, said Emad Darwish, director of the El-Shatbi hospital where she gave birth.
The newborns, four boys and three girls, have been placed in incubators in four different hospitals since they were premature, he added.
"This is a very rare pregnancy, something I have never witnessed over my past 33 years in this profession," Darwish said.
He added that he decided to carry out the ceasarian section at the end of the eighth month of pregnancy, due to the pressure of the womb on the mother's kidneys. The babies' weights range from 1.45 kilograms to 2.8 kilograms.
Khamis, the wife of a farmer hailing from the northern province of Beheira, is already the mother of three girls.
She was admitted to the hospital two months earlier.
Egypt's population has tripled since 1952 to 76 million people in 2006, according to the latest census.
The Egyptian government this summer launched a new campaign to raise awareness over the repercussions of a rising population.
In March, President Hosni Mubarak has blamed overpopulation for the acute shortages of subsidized bread that have hurt millions of the nation's poor as well as a lack of sufficient housing.
