Mohanned Elkafarneh, one of a set of newborn quadruplets, sleeps in his incubator in Windsor Regional Hospital's Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. (LIZ BERNIER/QMI Agency)

WINDSOR, Ont. — Friday the 13th was a lucky day for one area family after doctors delivered a set of quadruplets.

The four babies — boys Ahmed, Mohammad and Mohanned and girl Dana — were born to mom Reema Elkafarneh via C-section at the Windsor Regional Hospital on July 13. They have an older sister, 10-year-old Mai.

The infants were extremely small, with the largest one weighing 4 lbs. 1 oz. and the smallest weighing in at a mere 2 lbs. 10 oz.

Dr. Godfrey Bacheyie said the four babies are in good health, although they are being monitored in the neonatal intensive care unit.

Quadruplets are very rare.

The website MultipleBirthsCanada.org says a Statistics Canada report called Births by Plurality, said there were more than 220,000 multiple births children born between 1974 and 2000. The vast majority of those, 98.5%, were twins; 1.4% were triplets; and 0.1% were quadruplets or quintuplets.

This is the first time quadruplets have ever been born at Windsor Regional Hospital, and only the second time quadruplets have ever been born in Windsor.

The last time quadruplets were born to Canadian parents was in 2007, when Karen Jepp of Lethbridge, Alta., gave birth to identical sisters on Aug. 12. Autumn, Brooke, Calissa and Dahlia were all born at Benefis Hospital in Great Falls, Mont., at 31 weeks. Jepp and her husband, J.P., had to go to Montana due to a neonatal bed crunch in Calgary at the time.

liz.bernier@sunmedia.ca