Photo shows US newborns in 1995, not Sri Lanka sextuplets in 2023

"Here are the six little sons that a mother from Ragama gave birth to. The hospital director says they are all in good health," reads a Sinhala-language Facebook post from October 17, referring to a suburb of Colombo.

It is accompanied by a picture of six babies swaddled in hospital beds. The post has since been shared more than 800 times.

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A screenshot of the Facebook post captured on October 27, 2023

The post began circulating just hours after news broke on October 17 that a mother from Ragama had given birth to sextuplets at a hospital in the Sri Lankan capital (archived link).

According to local media outlet Ada Derana, doctors said the boys were born prematurely, at 26 weeks, and were receiving medical attention (archived link).

Other reports said the mother and babies were in good health (archived link).

Identical claims that the photo showed the sextuplets soon spread across Facebook, including in posts here and here.

However, the picture shows infants at a hospital nursery in Danbury, Connecticut, and was captured in 1995 by late American photographer Blaine Harrington III.

'Image still selling today'

A reverse image search on Google led to a 2016 article on Pixsy, an online platform helping photographers tackle misuse of their work (archived link).

The article features Harrington discussing the pros and cons of working as a stock photographer and features the picture of the six babies along with Harrington's watermark.

"Newborn babies in hospital nursery, Danbury, Connecticut, USA. My daughter was just born (she is the baby in the second row, far left)," a caption from Harrington reads.

"This image is still selling today and, in fact, has been sold somewhere in the world almost every month, for 21 years," it adds.

Harrington says in the article that he obtained permission from the parents of each baby before taking the picture.

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A screenshot of the photo bearing Harrington's watermark that was published in a 2016 article by Pixsy

Below is a screenshot comparison of the photo in the false posts (left) and the image in the Pixsy article (right):

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Screenshot comparison of the photo in the false posts (left) and the image in the Pixsy article (right)

The same photo has also been published in other articles online with credit to Harrington, including here and here (archived links here and here).

Harrington died in January, his team told AFP. A spokesperson for the photographer confirmed the picture is his work and said it was captured in 1995 when his daughter was born.

According to The Woman’s Hospital of Texas in the United States, where a mother gave birth to sextuplets in 2019, the odds of doing so are estimated to be about one in 4.7 billion.