A SHENZHEN mother gave birth to quadruplets, two boys and two girls, Monday.

The 31-year-old father surnamed Chen was overjoyed at the news after his 28-year-old wife delivered the babies by Cesarean section at Shenzhen Women?ˉs and Children's Hospital on Monday at noon, Chinese-language newspapers reported yesterday.

"I was told it would be triplets in earlier medical checks,"he said.

The biggest baby, a girl, weighed 1.7 kg while the smallest, a boy, weighed only 0.93 kg. Another baby girl weighed 1.6 kg and another boy 1 kg.

The mother, a Shenzhen native, and the babies were fine, the hospital said. The babies would be kept in incubators before being released in about one month.

According to the babies'grandmother, the couple had been married for six years and this was the mother's first confinement.

"She was slim and did not overeat during pregnancy,"the grandmother said."Nobody would have expected quadruplets."

(Li Jing)