Quintuplets: Australian woman gives birth to five babies

A 26-year-old woman in Australia has given birth to quintuplets, one boy and four girls, only the third such case in over 35 years in Western Australia, a media report said today.

Kim Tucci, a mother of three, gave birth to the five babies at King Edward Memorial Hospital in Perth yesterday in a matter of minutes and all are doing good, online newspaper WAtoday reported.

Tucci, who had to take 6,000 calories per day, welcomed the arrival of a new boy, named Keith, and four sisters - Ali, Penelope, Tiffany and Beatrix, along with her husband Vaughn.

A team of specialists will support Tucci until she is discharged.

She was expecting quintuplets late last year after she began documenting her incredible journey on her Facebook blog ‘Surprised by Five’. Photographer Erin Elizabeth shot some images of Tucci pregnant at 25 weeks on a Perth beach, the report said.

Last week, she wrote about how she was going to the toilet 12 times a night and having to eat 6000 calories a day.

Tucci kept her over 170,000 followers up to date on her pregnancy through the blog, where she recently wrote about her struggles as pregnancy neared.

She fell pregnant with quintuplets naturally in late July, the odds of which are one in 60 million.

Since 1980, there have been two other sets of quintuplets born in Western Australia.