The Polish-British parents of seven gave birth to five new babies in one fell swoop just for Valentine’s Day, with the mother saying on Tuesday she felt “better than expected” following such a pregnancy.
Dominika Clarke, already the mother of seven children aged 10 months to 12 years, gave birth to quintuplets on Sunday in a hospital in Krakow, in the south of the country.
“We had planned to have an eighth child, but it turns out there are many more,” she told reporters, alongside her British husband Vince.
The babies were born by caesarean section, at 29 weeks, and require respiratory support.
“We hope to arrive at the joyous moment of their discharge from the hospital,” said Ryszard Lauterbach, head of the neonatology department at the Krakow hospital.
The children, three girls and two boys, are named Arianna Daisy, Charles Patrick, Elizabeth May, Evangeline Rose and Henry James.
Ms Clarke called her pregnancy a ‘miracle’ as the hospital says the chance of conceiving quintuplets is 1 in 52 million.
“As a mathematician, I like these kinds of statistics,” smiled Ms. Clarke.
“We had a better chance of winning the lottery than having such a slew” of babies.
