The firstborn of the sextuplets is fighting for his life at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NCIU) of the Mt Hope Women's Hospital.

He is a baby boy who weighs just about 1.2 kilogrammes.

Medical sources told the Express that the parents—Kieron Cummings and Petra Lee Foon— were counselled and told in detail of the baby's complications by a team of paediatricians who are caring for the babies.

The parents, the Express understands, visited the sick baby yesterday.

Contacted by phone, chairman of the North-Central Regional Health Authority (NCRHA) Dr Shehenaz Mohammed refused to divulge any details surrounding the ailment of the baby but said "the first baby is very critical at this point in time.... We are very concerned about the first baby".

The other five babies, she said, were breathing on their own and out of the ventilator.

Questioned on whether the hospital has the resources to deal with the baby's complications, Mohammed said everything that is needed was available.

"The needs of the baby is not more than what we can provide; the neonatal ICU unit is providing all the needs that are required at this point in time, and the team also has Skype calls with the University of Georgetown in Washington (DC, USA), so there is a collaboration amongst colleagues in terms of management. Everything that needs to be done is being done," she said.

The Express understands that although it was too early to determine, generally, premature babies run the risk of suffering from a number of ailments such as blindness, cerebral palsy, hearing problems and brain underdevelopment, which result in slow learning, among other issues.