I would not say their chances were good yet Consultant George Wynn-Williams

All the girls are being cared for in separate cubicles in the special baby care nursery and they are all in incubators.

They are being fed hourly with breast milk from the hospital's milk bank, fed through a tube into their stomachs.

The babies were delivered by a team of 26 doctors and nurses, led by George Wynn-Williams a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist.

He said: "I would not say their chances were good yet, but they are certainly better than we might have expected."

The girls were born nine weeks premature and were delivered by caesarean section.

Mrs Hanson is in excellent condition and resting. She has not yet seen her daughters but is said to be "as happy as Larry".

Mr Hanson has seen his daughters through a glass partition and is said to be delighted.

His wife was given a fertility drug, gonadotrophin, to help her become pregnant and they suspected very early in the pregnancy she was going to have more than one baby.

Senior registrar Stuart Campbell said they had used an ultrasonic detector, a British invention recently developed in Glasgow, to diagnose there would be at least five babies. They were also able to accurately forecast the weights of the babies.

Mr Hanson is reported to have sold the rights of the couple's story to the Daily Express newspaper for a "substantial sum".

Doreen Adams, Mrs Hanson's former boss at Ford's in Ilford in Essex where she worked as a telephonist, has said the quintuplets were a well-kept secret among colleagues in the office.

She said: "Irene is so calm and efficient I am sure she will be able to tackle the mammoth job of looking after five babies with ease."

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