A 24-year-old woman delivered a set of quintuplets in a span of three minutes on Friday at the Kokilaben Ambani Hospital, Andheri. The
first all-male set of quintuplets - incidentally, also the lone survivor set in India - and Sabira Khan, their proud mother, are all doing well.

"The set was conceived naturally. This, apart from being the first survivor set in India, is the eleventh all-male set and the seventeenth set of natural conception in the world," said Dr Suchitra Pandit, the gynaecologist who operated upon Sabira. The average weight of the babies is 800 gram. The first was born at 12:36 pm and the last at 12:39 pm, say the doctors who performed the operation.

Incidentally, this is not the first delivery for Sabira. "Our first son is 10 months old now. It is only by God's grace that I've got five more sons in the month of Ramzan, and on a Friday," said Ubaid Khan, the ecstatic father. He runs a garments business at Naya Bazaar.

The quintuplets did not seem to have caused much of a problem to their mother. "Sabira's case was referred to us by another doctor
. It was a big decision on our hospital's part to take up such a case. We needed a lot of preparation, both mental as well as in terms of equipment,'' said Dr Vinay Joshi, consultant pediatrician.

"When Sabira was referred to us on Monday, we did not know what to do. She was in her 28th week of pregnancy and had a history of a leak (passing water). Plus, one of the babies had less fluid surrounding him. Sabira also had a slightly higher pulse rate," said Dr Pandit, adding that the whole team had practised four drills before the delivery.

"The babies will have to be kept in the ICU for at least two months," said Dr Joshi.