Sextuplets born to US couple

A woman gave in the US has given birth to sextuplets and doctors say the three boys and three girls are doing well.

Sonda Headrick, 33, and her husband Eldon, 32, are from Rago, about 40 miles southwest of Wichita, Kansas, which until yesterday had a population of 12.

The children were delivered by Caesarean section at Via Christi Regional Medical Center - St Joseph on yesterday afternoon. Each child weighed between 2 pounds 10 ounces and 3 pounds 11 ounces.

Fewer than 100 sets of sextuplets are on record, and only about a dozen have survived as full sets, hospital officials said. Some of the children have lived with vision problems, cerebral palsy or other health defects.

The Headrick sextuplets resulted from fertility drugs used last summer. The Headricks also have another daughter, three-year-old Aubrianna.

Doctors had told the couple the latest pregnancy could be aborted or reduced by four, giving the two remaining foetuses a better chance of survival.

But Mrs Headrick said abortion was not a choice. She and her husband had already seen six heartbeats flickering on the doctor’s sonogram video monitor.