OTTAWA, CANADA - Canada's first sextuplets, born more than a week ago, are facing an additional complication to the usual premature baby's struggle for survival: Their parents' religion forbids blood transfusions, a typical part of a preemie's treatment.

Their condition remains a mystery, and the hospital refuses to confirm reports that one has died.

The six tiny babies were born Jan. 5 and 6 in Vancouver, to parents who are Jehovah's Witnesses. Delivered at 25 weeks, a little over halfway through the typical 40-week pregnancy, the four boys and two girls average 1.6 pounds and can rest in the palm of a man's hand. The survival rate for such births is about 80 percent.

The parents have asked to remain anonymous, and the hospital has not provided information since the day after the sextuplets' birth, when a spokesman reported they were in "fair" condition. On Tuesday, hospital officials would not confirm a media report that one of the babies had died.

"The family asks that their privacy be respected," said a spokeswoman for the B.C. Women's Hospital in Vancouver, British Columbia.

But the news of Canada's largest birth and the awkward nudge of religious rights against the right to life has riveted people in a nation that prides itself on tolerance.

The infants face months in intensive care as their nascent organs, muscles and immunities develop enough for them to live on their own. Because premature babies have low blood volume, have blood drawn for repeated tests, and are vulnerable to anemia, blood transfusions are a typical part of their treatment, specialists say.

While Jehovah's Witnesses can now receive almost any medical intervention, including fertility treatments, organ transplants and vaccinations, the religion's interpretation of the Bible still prohibits blood transfusions. One passage cited as the basis for the prohibition is from Leviticus: "And you must not eat any blood in any places where you dwell, whether that of fowl or that of beast. Any soul who eats any blood, that soul must be cut off from his people."

The taboo probably was meant to prevent contamination of water supplies, wrote religious scholar Michael Duggan of St. Mary's University College in Calgary. But the religion, which uses first-century Christianity as its model, has interpreted it literally to forbid the "consumption" or spilling of blood.

Mark Ruge, spokesman for the Jehovah's Witnesses in Canada, said: "It mentions in the Bible to abstain from blood, and so we follow that. We want the best for the children, but without blood."

Asked about the consequences of accepting a transfusion, Ruge said that those who do not follow the Bible's teachings would no longer be Jehovah's Witnesses, "by their own accord."

Canada's child protection laws, meanwhile, ensure that babies get the medical intervention necessary to keep them alive, even if it takes a court order.

So far, neither Vancouver's Child Welfare department nor the hospital has applied for a court order, a provincial court official confirmed Tuesday.