45-year-old mother gives birth to 15th child

A Health Official said on Tuesday that a 45-year-old Vietnamese woman has broken a national record by giving birth to her 14th and 15th child.

“I have never seen a women have so many children in decades,” Doctor Nguyen Ba Thuy, a former deputy minister of healthcare, told dpa.

Nguyen Thi Sam, who had been pregnant for 32 weeks, gave birth to twins weighing 1.5 and 1.6 kg at Tu Du Maternity Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City on Sunday, the online newspaper Vietnam Net reported.

For decades Vietnamese law has encouraged a two-child limit on families, although the law is only compulsory for members of the ruling Communist Party.

Sam, who is from Nghe An province in central Vietnam, was visiting Ho Chi Minh City when doctors were forced to perform a caesarean section to deliver the babies.

“In spite of the unexpected incident, my two girls were born safe and I very much thank the doctors who helped me successfully,” she said according to Vietnam Net.

Prior to her latest offspring, Sam previously had a total of six boys and seven girls.

The eldest two are both married while a third is studying in the U.S.

Thuy said that Sam broke Vietnam’s previous record of 14 children, which was set in Hanoi in 2013.(dpa/NAN)