Officials at B.C. Women's Hospital say the sextuplets born on the weekend have a good chance of survival and are "in fair condition."
Chief neonatologist Dr. Brian Lupton told a news conference Monday that doctors face a major challenge face in feeding the infants and making sure they can breathe on their own.
The newborns will likely have to remain in hospital for the next three months as their bodies develop.
The babies, whose parents have requested anonymity, are being given steroids to help them grow.
Hospital president Dr. Liz Whynot said the first baby came around 8:30 p.m. Saturday night, with the others born early Sunday. They were born almost three months premature.
Citing the family's desire for privacy, neither Whynot nor Lupton would reveal any other details, though Lupton said babies born this prematurely average 700 to 800 grams, or 1.5 to 1.8 pounds.
Sources told news outlets that four boys and two girls were born, each weighing about 1.8 pounds.
The parents are Jehovah's Witnesses and "are focusing all their energy on their new family," Whynot said.
"While they understand there is a lot of public interest in the birth of their babies, they are feeling overwhelmed. So they're asking for their privacy to be respected."
On average, babies born after 25 weeks gestation spend 100 days in neonatal intensive care, and about 80 per cent survive.
Despite the odds in their favour, Canada's first sextuplets will face some uphill battles. Babies born between 23 and 25 weeks are considered on the borderline of viability, Lupton said.
Such an early delivery means the baby's organs are immature, their skin is thinner, and they weigh less because fetuses gain the most fat in the final weeks of pregnancy.
Once the infants leave neonatal intensive care, they may need some home followup such as additional oxygen.
Over the long-term, they may also face potential neurological and development deficiencies, vision and hearing problems.
Despite the rare event, Lupton maintained almost a clinical detachment. He refused to divluge whether the births excited him nor whether sextuplets offered a unique learning or research opportunity for the hospital and its staff.
"It (sextuplets) is something that is within the parameters of the sort of thing we deal with," he said.
"Clearly it's not something you're dealing with every day ...
"I am used to looking after babies of 25 weeks gestation - we look after many each year - and these infants fit into that group of patients."
The six tiny babies born on the weekend were likely conceived through the use of fertility drugs, he said.
Without drugs, sextuplets occur only once in several billion births.
However, neither Lupton nor Whynot would reveal if that was the case.
The B.C. Women's Hospital is the same one that delivered the conjoined twins of Vernon, B.C.'s Felicia Simms back in October. Her children left hospital just before Christmas.
Yvonne Gilmour, who made history when she became the mother of the first quintuplets born in western Canada in 1999, says the parents have a long few weeks ahead of them.
"I think I just had to take one hour at a time and one day at a time because I wanted to know what ... could go wrong with premature babies," she said.
"And we just prayed daily for healthy babies and we held on to that. I think that was the biggest part -- just hanging in there with the babies."
Gilmour, who has been acting as a mentor for the new parents, described them as "fine. She told CTV's Canada AM they had a lot of questions for her.
"How to prepare for a multiple pregnancy, how to keep healthy, lots of bed rest, lots of calorie intake, stuff like that," she said.
With files from The Canadian Press
