Iraqi woman in her 40s pregnant with 13 infants

An Iraqi woman in her early 40s is pregnant with 13 infants although she has already delivered seven including twins since she married 24 years ago.

Her husband Fadhil Al Azawi, a farmer from the central Iraqi province of Salahuddin, said medical tests and images showed his wife has 13 fetuses in her uterus although she has not been pregnant for the previous five years.

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He said he married another woman in 2012 after his wife failed to get pregnant in the previous five years, adding that he is now both elated and worried.

“I am very happy about my wife’s new pregnancy but at the same time I am worried about how to look after her to preserve this heavenly gift,” he said.

“The news that my wife is pregnant with 13 infants was a big surprise to me and I am now trying to arrange special care for her as her delivery will perhaps allow me to become the world’s only father of such a big number of twins.”

Newspapers quoted Dr Mikdam Al Jabouri, a specialist at Takreet hospital in Iraq, as saying tests and images showed the woman is pregnant with 13 infants.

“Initial tests showed four of them are dead as their hearts do not pulse…the rest appeared in good condition,” he said.

“The mother is also in good health and this is one of the rarest pregnancy cases in history…but we expect more of them to die in advanced pregnancy stages and that the babies who will be delivered alive will be very small.”

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