The husband of the South African woman who reportedly gave birth to decuplets is asking people not to send in any donations to his new babies and his wife. Teboga Tsotetsi is yet to see his wife Gosiame Sithole and his 10 babies since she left home on June 7 to the labor ward.
Last week, he accepted over $70,000 in public donations for them in Cape Town, per the New York Post.
“I appreciate the financial support that we have been getting from members of the public, but I also would like to appeal to the public to stop making money deposits into our accounts until members of the community have seen the babies,” Tsotetsi told the local newspaper Pretoria News, according to the Daily Mail.
The news of her birth garnered worldwide attention because of its potential Guinness world record-breaking feat of being the first woman to give birth to 10 babies in one pregnancy. But the fact that officials have not yet sighted any photos of the babies since their birth is making many, including Tsotetsi, doubt the authenticity of the claim of the birth.
The babies — seven boys and three girls — were supposedly welcomed on the midnight of June 8.
Per the South African Sunday Times, none of the public or private hospitals mentioned in earlier reports have sighted the babies.
Dr. Mathabo Mathebula, CEO of the Steve Biko Academic Hospital, which is part of the Gauteng health and provincial authorities, told Radio 702 that Sithole was at their facility not to deliver the babies but to say she is the decumum and left the place after that.
“She’s not at the hospital as we speak. We don’t know the background … on Saturday afternoon she appeared, being accompanied by security, [and said] she wants to go to the NIU (neonatal inpatient unit) because she wants to see her babies.
“She said she gave birth at Louis Pasteur and they told her they will transfer the babies to the hospital [Steve Biko],’ Mathebula told the radio station.
Meanwhile, several other family members have maintained that Sithole did indeed give birth to 10 babies. The claims are that she pushed out five babies and had a Caesarean section for the other five, and the babies are in critical condition.
“[The babies] are still in incubators fighting for their lives. They came at 29 weeks; the mother is still weak… This is a sensitive issue,” one woman told TimesLIVE.
Some reports say the photos have not been published yet due to cultural and religious reasons.
