A woman from the African country of Mali is now mom to nine babies and may have set a world record in the process. Halima Cisse delivered five girls and four boys by C-section and they’re all doing well, which isn’t always the case for births with so many multiples.
Nadya Suleman, or “Octomom” as she was better known, currently holds the Guinness World Record for the most children delivered at a single birth to survive. Only two sets of nonuplets have ever been recorded, one set to an Australian woman in 1971 and the other to a woman in Malaysia in 1999, but with both of those births none of the babies lived more than a few days.
Cisse’s husband, Adjudant Kader Arby, is still in Mali with their older daughter and says he’s been in constant touch with his wife and he’s not worried about the future. “God gave us these children,” he says. “He is the one to decide what will happen to them.