In a rare occurrence, a woman from Ho Chi Minh City’s District 5 gave birth to five babies at Tu Du Obstetrics Hospital on Sunday.

The 28-year-old delivered three boys and two girls by caesarean section at 7:10pm, and the newborns weigh from 1.3kg to 2kg each, doctors at the hospital confirmed.

The babies are being cared for at the hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit, while their mother has been admitted to the ICU.

It has been reported that the mother went through in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment to get pregnant.

Over the past 15 years, fifteen IVF centers have been established across the country, and have produced more than 10,000 babies, according to a report by Professor and Doctor Nguyen Thi Ngoc Phuong, chairwoman of the HCMC Society for Reproductive Medicine.

Phuong added that Vietnam currently tops Southeast Asia in this technique, and hundreds of foreigners annually visit Vietnam to get IVF treatment.

An IVF procedure costs between VND30-40million (US$1,749-2,332).

In recent years there have been several cases in which local women gave birth to more than three babies at the same time.

In June, 2012, a 31-year-old woman from the Mekong Delta province of Dong Thap gave birth to four baby girls at Tu Du hospital after conceiving them naturally.

In August 2011, a 21-year-old woman from An Giang Province successfully gave birth to quadruplets weighing six kilos in total at HCMC-based Gia Dinh People Hospital.