The four remaining siblings of Bermuda's only quintuplet birth celebrated their 18th birthday with a visit to the Washington DC hospital where they were born.

Makiri, Dakarai, Raziya and Marjoni Smith paid a visit to Howard University Hospital (HUH) on Tuesday in honour of the special occasion.

The four were doted upon by members of the 45-strong medical team who helped deliver them by C-section nearly two decades ago to proud parents Robin and Troy Smith. Embraced as guests of honour, they were showered with gifts, friendly embraces and a birthday cake.

"I feel like a celebrity," said Raziya, in the midst of camera flashes and questions from the press.

Washington DC's Channel 4 News, the Washington Post and Howard University newspaper The Hilltop, all ran stories about the teenagers' return.

"We are so happy to have our babies back," said Davene White, director of Maternal Child Health Nursing and one of the nurses who helped in the quint's delivery.

Lennox Westney, one of the doctors who helped with the delivery, said the work was one of his proudest achievements.

"I have collected many pictures over my career, but none have been more impressive and rewarding than those I have of the quintuplets."

Their births caused a stir in 1991. The Smith children were the first set of quintuplets born at HUH, the second born in Washington DC, and the only quintuplets to survive in the US since 1963.

Their arrival was celebrated by local and international media.

The Washington Post, Jet Magazine, CNN and other major news sources followed the successful delivery of the "Bermuda quints".

The fifth sibling, Makesi, died at 21 months in 1993, after having suffered with what is believed to have been pneumonia.

His sisters and brothers made annual visits to the hospital until they were six.

Dakarai was treated as a guest of honour when he paid a surprise visit to HUH while in Washington DC earlier this year. Doctors and nurses that helped deliver him and his siblings gave him a tour of the hospital and the room where he and his siblings were born.

He had travelled there to take the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) which American colleges use to determine acceptance. When the quints were born, Franklin G. Jenifer, who was then president of Howard University, promised them free tuition at the school.

None has yet taken him up on the offer. Marjani recently graduated from high school in Bermuda and is now studying abroad, while Makiri and Raziya attend boarding school in Florida.

Dakarai has since enrolled at the University of District Columbia but hopes to attend Howard once he completes that programme.

His brother and sisters all intend to follow in his footsteps.

Today, with the increased use of fertility drugs and improved medical procedures, multiple births have become more and more common.

When the "Bermuda Quints" were born it was estimated that only one in five million births produced quintuplets, with the odds of survival very low.