The children were delivered by Cesarean section. One was delivered stillborn. Mrs. Thompson remained hospitalized for a month at the Georgetown University Medical Center. Multiple births are still an extreme rarity. Only 2.6 percent of the total live births in the United States in 1996 were of more than one child.
Sextuplets are almost unheard of.
Other than the Thompsons, there has been only one other recorded birth of sextuplets in the United States this year. In an extensive search of all major publications, I found no record of any TV news feature, special report, or print feature on them in any major daily. If not for a brief news blurb on the Thompson births in the black weekly, Jet magazine, the event would have gone completely unnoticed. It's not hard to figure out why. They did not use a fertility drug.