Mother Welcomes 9 Babies 12 Years After Octomom: Meet Halima Cisse and Her Kids

A 25-year-old Malian woman named Halima Cissé welcomed nonuplets — nine babies — in Morocco over a decade after Nadya Suleman, better known as Octomom, made headlines for the birth of her octuplets in 2009.  

Cissé delivered five girls and four boys via C-section at around 30 weeks into her pregnancy on May 4 and their names have since been revealed: daughters Hawa, Adama, Fatouma, Oumou and Kadidia, as well as sons Mohamed, Bah, Elhadji and Oumar. 

Cissé’s husband, Kader Arby, 35, is waiting in Mali’s capital, Bamako, until he gets paperwork to fly to Casablanca to visit his wife, with whom he also has a daughter aside from the nonuplets, according to Daily Mail.  

Due to the babies being born prematurely, two of the nonuplets are still on ventilators and all of them will have to spend at least another three months at a specialist unit. Cissé reportedly only has limited access to them to avoid the risk of infection. 

After the arrival of the couple’s children, Youssef Alaoui, who is the medical director of Casablanca’s Ain Borja clinic, said it will still take some time until the babies can go home safely. “There is still work to do because they are very premature,” Alaoui told CNN on May 7, noting Cissé is fortunately now in stable condition. “They need to gain weight, they need to breast-feed.” 

As for whether Cissé set a new record for the most number of babies born in a single delivery, a spokeswoman for the Guinness World Records said they had “yet to verify” in a statement to Daily Mail. “Our records team alongside a specialist consultant are looking into this.”

Suleman, who currently holds the world record for the most babies delivered in a single birth to survive, made history when she birthed a healthy set of octuplets via C-section in 2009. After undergoing IVF, she welcomed six boys and two girls, at the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Bellflower, California. Her octuplets are only the second full set of octuplets to be born alive in the United States. Before their birth, she had already welcomed six children, making her a mother of 14. 

After walking away from the spotlight, the fitness enthusiast has shared updates about her family on social media, including the sweet Mother’s Day celebration she recently enjoyed with her kids. The Suleman octuplets are now 12.