This Day, That Year

Item from Jan 7, 1982, in China Daily: Cui Yuhua and her husband, Zhang Keliang, proudly display their family, China’s only quadruplets — two boys and two girls.

Cui, a peasant, married Zhang, a member of the Daolin commune in Ningxiang county, Hunan province, in 1976. The babies were born three years later in an easy delivery.

The first-born was a girl, weighing 3.1 kilograms; each of the others weighed exactly 2.6 kg at birth. All four children are reported to be in good health.

The country’s first reported quadruplets in Ningxiang county, Hunan province, had gone on to receive vocational training in accounting and motoring after junior high school, local media reported.

Both of the male siblings subsequently worked as driving school instructors in Nanhai, Guangdong province. One of their sisters became a teacher in their hometown, while the younger one managed a clothing store in Changsha, capital of Hunan province.

There are no officially released statistics about the country’s twins or other multiple offspring from the same pregnancy, but health specialists have estimated that the number of such deliveries has risen in the past few years due to medical interventions such as fertility drugs.

In 2011, a study by Nanjing Medical University showed that the rate of twins being born in five hospitals in Jiangsu province had been rising, Xinhua News Agency reported.