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GV Ext. hospital
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MV Doctor with mother Pan to relatives
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CU Mother
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MV Mother and father
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MV Doctors in corridor
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SCU Doctor attending to baby in incubator
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MV Doctors in corridor
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SCU Other baby being treated in incubator
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CU Photograph of sextuplets taken immediately after birth
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Initials OJP/AH/OS



Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: At the Polyclinic Umber Hospital in Rome a 35-year-old woman, Mrs Loredana Petrone, gave birth to sextuplets on Tuesday evening (4 August). It was the first recorded sextuplet birth in Italian medical history, but four of the babies died within 12 hours.

Mrs Petrone, whose husband works in a furniture factory, was given the fertility drug "Pergonal-500" after trying unsuccessfully for 11 years to have a family. The babies....four girls and two boys....weighed only 23 ounces (700 grammes) at birth, and were only 12 inches (30 centimetres) long. They were nearly three months premature.

After their birth, which followed a 35-minute delivery, the babies were placed and treated in incubators. Four survived less than 12 hours, and doctors say the chances of survival for the two remaining girls are slim.