MIAMI (Reuters):

A Florida mother has given birth to rare sextuplets and five of the six were doing well, the father said yesterday.

Ben Byler said his wife Karoline was in "excellent" condition after giving birth to six babies, five boys and one girl, at around 9:00 p.m. EDT on Saturday (0100 GMT on Sunday) at the Bayfront Medical Center of St. Petersburg on Florida's Gulf of Mexico coast.

"Five of the six are doing really great," Byler said. "There's one that's having difficulty breathing."

Byler and his wife had not settled on the last three names for the sextuplets until yesterday morning. He said he would take the challenge of looking after six babies at the same time "day by day".

"I'm sure it's going to be overwhelming," he said.