PHOTO: Woman Gives Birth To Sextuplets

The four girls and two boys were delivered 14 weeks premature by caesarean section at the Royal Jubilee Maternity Hospital.

A woman gave birth to six babies in Belfast on Friday, the first record of sextuplets in the island of Ireland, hospital staff said.

The four girls and two boys were delivered 14 weeks premature by caesarean section at the Royal Jubilee Maternity Hospital in the space of five minutes, with 30 staff assisting.

"We can't find a record of anything bigger, we did have quintuplets a number of years ago but certainly not sextuplets. We think it's the first time in Ireland," a spokesman for the hospital told Reuters.

The six babies, weighing between 1lb 7oz and 2lb 2oz, are currently in intensive care.

"Nobody in the business of babies here has seen anything like it," he said, adding that the mother was recovering well.

An American woman, Nadya Suleman, gave birth to octuplets in California earlier this year as a result of fertility treatments. The sextuplets born on Friday were conceived naturally, the hospital said.

Take a look at the attached photo gallery: Belfast: Sextuplets Conceived The Natural Way.