An Italian woman has given birth to quintuplets, but the mother and the babies are in a serious condition, doctors at a hospital in the Sicilian city of Messina said.
The quintuplets' birth on Thursday was kept secret until now at the request of the parents, they said.
The babies, four girlsand a boy, were born two months premature. The smallest weighed 550g while the biggest weighed 1.2kg. All five are in incubators.
"The quintuplets are 28 weeks and two days old and if a premature birth is a difficult situation when there is one child, imagine when there are five of them," Dr Eloisa Gitto said.
"For the time being they are in a precarious but stable state. It's too early to be reassured though."
