Dionne quintuplets

The Dionne quintuplets (French pronunciation: [djɔn]; born May 28, 1934) are the first quintuplets known to have survived their infancy. The identical girls were born just outside Callander, Ontario, near the village of Corbeil. All five survived to adulthood.

The Dionne girls were born prematurely. After four months with their family, custody was signed over to the Red Cross, which paid for their care and oversaw the building of a hospital for the sisters. Less than a year after this agreement was signed, the Ontario government stepped in and passed the Dionne Quintuplets' Guardianship Act, 1935, which made them wards of the Crown until the age of 18. The Ontario provincial government and those around them began to profit by making them a significant tourist attraction.

The identical quintuplet girls were, in order of birth:

The Dionne family was headed by father Oliva-Édouard (1904–1979) and mother Elzire Dionne (née Legros; 1909–1986), who married on September 15, 1925. They lived just outside Corbeil, in a farmhouse in unregistered territory. The Dionnes were a French-speaking farming family with five older children: Ernest (1926–1995), Rose Marie (1928–1995), Thérèse (1929–2021), Daniel (1932–1995), and Pauline (1933–2018), who was only eleven months older than the quintuplets. A sixth child, Léo (1930–1930), died of pneumonia shortly after birth.

The Dionnes also had three sons after the quintuplets: Oliva Jr. (1936–2017), Victor (1938–2007), and Claude (1946–2009).

Elzire was 24 when she gave birth to the quintuplets. She suspected she was carrying twins, but no one was aware that quintuplets were even possible. The quintuplets were born prematurely. In 1938, the doctors had a theory that was later proven correct when genetic tests showed that the girls were identical, meaning they were created from a single egg cell. Elzire reported having cramps in her third month and passing a strange object which may have been a sixth fetus.

Dr. Allan Roy Dafoe is credited with ensuring the successful live birth of the quintuplets. Organised pre-natal care was not practised at that place and time so based upon his observations, he thought Elzire's baby may have a "fetal abnormality". Throughout her pregnancy she suffered from fluid retention and anaemia. Dafoe delivered the babies with the help of two midwives, Aunt Donalda and Madame Benoît Lebel, who were summoned by Oliva Dionne in the middle of the night.

Émilie and Marie shared an amniotic sac, as did Annette and Yvonne. Based on reports from Elzire, it is suspected that Cécile shared an amniotic sac with a sixth fetus: at approx. 12 weeks she passed what seemed a miscarried fetus. All but Émilie were later discovered to be right-handed and all but Marie had a counterclockwise whorl in their hair.