British woman beats odds to give birth to identical triplets

Doctors are hailing a medical sensation after a British woman beat odds of one in 200 million and gave birth to identical triplets.

Mae Christina Astley, 25, had three girls called Amy, Kim and Zoe by Caesarean section at Feldkirch State Hospital in Western Austria on Monday.

The babies were delivered prematurely, each weighing 3.3lb, and are under surveillance in the hospital's intensive care unit.



The babies were conceived naturally without fertility treatments.

Identical triplets are extremely rare because it means the original fertilised egg split and then one of the resulting cells split again.

It is far more common for triplets to consist of identical twins and another sibling.