August 17, 2008	Sunday	Sha'aban 14, 1429

CAIRO, Aug 16: An Egyptian woman gave birth to septuplets early on Saturday in the coastal city of Alexandria after taking fertility drugs in effort to produce a son, a hospital director said.

Ghazala Khamis, 27, was in good condition at the hospital after having a blood transfusion during her Caesarean section due to bleeding, said Emad Darwish, director of the El-Shatbi Hospital where she gave birth.

The newborns, four boys and three girls, weigh between 3.2 pounds (1.45 kgs) and 6.17 pounds (2.8 kgs) and are in stable condition, Darwish said. They have been placed in incubators in four different hospitals that have special premature baby units, he said.

“This is a very rare pregnancy -- something I have never witnessed over my past 33 years in this profession,” Darwish said.

Darwish decided to carry out the Caesarean section at the end of Khamis’ eighth month of pregnancy due to the pressure on her kidneys.

“From the initial checkup, I say that none of the babies have any sort of deformities or have incomplete organs,” Darwish said.

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.

Darwish criticised Khamis’s doctor at her local clinic who prescribed fertility drugs after she hadn’t ovulated for five years.—AP