Sextuplets Born to Kansas Couple of the U.S.

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, April 08, 2002

Sextuplets Born to Kansas Couple of the U.S.

A woman who used fertility drugs gave birth to sextuplets Saturday and doctors say the three boys and three girls appear healthy.

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A woman who used fertility drugs gave birth to sextuplets Saturday and doctors say the three boys and three girls appear healthy.

Only 96 sets of sextuplets have been born worldwide since recording began in the early 1900s, said doctors at Via Christi Regional Medical Center-St. Joseph, where a 24-member medical team delivered the babies by Caesarean section Saturday afternoon.

Mother Sondra Headrick, 33, and her husband Eldon, 32, live in Rago, about 40 miles southwest of Wichita, which until Saturday had a population of 12.

Headrick has been in the hospital for the past 93 days. Doctors said they delivered the babies Saturday because they feared for the health of one of the children.

Four were on a respirator Saturday night and the other two children were on oxygen, but doctors say they were all doing well.

Each baby weighed between 2 pounds 10 ounces and 3 pounds 11 ounces and they all squealed when they were born, Dr. Katherine Schooley said.

Headrick carried the children for 31 weeks. A full pregnancy is 40 weeks, but in Headrick's case doctors had hoped she would carry them for at least 26 or 27 weeks.

"It is a miracle the mother was able to hold onto the babies as long as she did," Schooley said. "I anticipate all the babies are going to do very beautifully."

The Headricks did not appear at a hospital news conference Saturday night and could not be reached for comment.

The babies �� named Ethan Roy, Melissa Sue, Grant Douglas, Sean Edward, Jaycie Linette, and Danielle Patrice �� are to be hospitalized for four to six weeks. Their mother is expected to go home in a few days.

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