Czech Republic Welcomes ‘First’ Quintuplets

The first recorded Czech quintuplets were born this week, according to hospital officials. The woman who gave birth to the babies, Alexandra Kinova, 23, had a Cesarean section earlier this week.

Officials at Prague’s Institute for the Care of Mother and Child announced the births, adding that the mother and her five babies are in intensive care, though they are in stable condition.

Kinova, who already has a son with her partner, Antonin Kroscen, 26. The couple didn’t know until last month that they were having quintuplets. The babies were conceived naturally, which makes their existence incredible in itself.

Experts say the odds of conceiving quintuplets naturally is one in several million, though the odds were helped by the fact that twins are on both sides of the family.

Kinova was first told by doctors that she would be having twins. However, doctors revised the number of babies in March when they discovered two more. It wasn’t until May when they discovered a fifth fetus inside her. The mother of quintuplets recalled, “When we finally found a fifth head, I started to cry.”

Aside from a few months of morning sickness, the Czech woman has had no complications from her quintuplet pregnancy. That streak of health carried on this week, as doctors reported no complications with the birth of her children. Doctors also could not tell the sexes of all five babies until they were born, because two were hiding in the ultrasounds.

Alexandra gave birth to four boys and a girl, named Michael, Daniel, Alex, Martin, and Tereza. Obstetrician Alena Mechurova stated of the Czech quintuplet birth, “In our country [birth] statistics have been recorded since 1949 and there’s no mention of quintuplets. In the Czech Republic quintuplets are born on average once every 480 years.”

And Alexandra Kinova will certainly be busy, as she plans on breastfeeding all five babies. She explained, “The first child I nursed for almost a year and a half and I want to breastfeed now. While I know that some will be on artificial nutrition.”

The hospital doubled the number of doctors and midwives on hand for the birth of the Czech quintuplets.

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