A first for Costa Rica recently occurred when one Sylvia Villegas gave birth to sextuplets at Hospital Mexico in San Jose on May 18th, 2015, after a 6 and half month gestation.

The six newborns were brought into the world by way of cesarean section, and they were all healthy at around 900 to 1,100 grams as reported by the director of the National Children’s Hospital, Dr. Olga Argedas. The babies were somewhat premature, and they have required extra attention since their birth. The babies are named Emma, Diego, Tomás, Valentina, Gabriel and Andréas, and it took a team of 21 medical specialists to deliver the babies.

There have been a series of multiple births in Costa Rica of late. Two other mothers have given birth to quadruplets in recent days along with the sextuplets produced by Sylvia Villegas. Multiple births are most commonly a result of taking fertility medications. Fertility treatments have been the culprit in most multiple birth cases, because the drugs stimulate the ovaries to produce more than one egg in a cycle.

The team of neonatologists, pediatricians and gynecologists that came together to help with the birth of the sextuplets continues to monitor their progress, and the father Juan Francisco González has confirmed that both the babies and their mother are in good condition. The first baby to go off oxygen support was Emma.

Three of the newborns have remained at Hospital Mexico, whereas three of them have been taken to other national hospitals for reasons that have been made clear. It is understood that some of the equipment necessary to monitor their status is not available at Hospital Mexico in quantities to serve all of the newborns. There isn’t one single hospital in all of Costa Rica that could facilitate all six of the babies at the same time.

The children do not appear to have any deformities or disorders, and only needed treatment according to their premature births. Sextuplets were also recently born in the Dominican Republic which marks multiple firsts for Latin America.