THE BBC has apologised for adding the sound of babies crying to its footage of quintuplets born at an Oxford hospital.

The five girls, delivered at the John Radcliffe Hospital last Saturday, are the latest individuals to be drawn into the broadcasting fakery row.

The hospital distributed clips of the five babies and their Russian parents, who had defied the advice of doctors in Moscow that they should abort some of the foetuses.

While broadcasters such as Sky and ITN ran clips of the footage without the audio, the BBC's footage contains the sound of children crying, even though the babies had respirators in their mouths.

A spokesman for the Oxford hospital said: "There was no audio on our clip."

A BBC spokesman said the corporation should have left the footage alone.

He said: "We received the film without sound and on reflection we should have kept it that way."

The sound effect was later removed from the story.

The quins are doing well five days after their birth.

And you can see them on our special video.

The little girls, who need special care after being born 14 weeks early, are the first set of live quins born in the UK for more than a decade.

Their mother, an unnamed 29-year-old Russian music teacher, came to the John Radcliffe for help after doctors in her own country advised her to have selective terminations to reduce the number of foetuses - an option she rejected due to her religious beliefs.

Obstetrician Mr Lawrence Impey led the team of 20 staff who delivered the babies in 20 minutes by Caesarean section in the early hours of Saturday.

He said there was a "party atmosphere" on the labour ward, once all five children had been born safely. Three of the girls are being cared for in Oxford, while two others have been transferred to another specialist unit at Queen Charlotte's Hospital in London.

They will stay in the UK until they are well enough to return to Russia with their family.

All the family's medical costs have been met by a group of Russian philanthropists.

The mother received intensive outpatient care at the Oxford Foetal Medicine Unit to prolong the pregnancy as long as possible until three days before the births, when she started contractions.

Mr Impey said: "This hospital has its problems, but we have an international reputation for the quality of care patients receive here.

"The delivery was like a relay race, with a team looking after each baby.

"One room on the labour ward was set up with five resuscitaires and a runner would take each baby as they were born every 30 seconds.

All five children, who weighed between 1lb 13oz and 2lb 2oz, were named straight after they were born - and immediately baptised by their maternal grandfather, who is a Russian Orthodox priest.

Such a large number of babies being born at once is extremely rare - with even twins being classed as high-risk - and there are no official records of quins being born in the UK between 1996 and 2006.