I saw the news article about the Californian woman who had octuplets last week and immediately thought ‘Oh dear God! Tthat poor woman!’. I also assumed that they must have been naturally conceived because surely no right minded ethical member of the medical profession who specializes in reproductive technology would be socially irresponsible enough to implant such a large number of embryos.
Or so I had thought.
It turns out that the single unemployed mum who gave birth to these children already had six children at home where she lives with the children’s grandmother and grandfather and the octuplets were apparently the result of an IVF procedure. I’ve read some reports that claim that the mother in question filed bankruptcy not long before undergoing IVF and is currently seeking all sorts of sponsorship arrangements and media deals to raise money. Ostensibly these funds are to ‘help with the costs of raising so many babies’ but it’s starting to sound like this woman deliberately decided to have a litter so she could become famous, make money and go on to be a ‘child raising expert’ of some sort.
So how does an insolvent single mum of six, presumably uninsured and living on welfare, afford IVF in the first place? For the sake of those poor little babies I hope all this is incorrect, but there’s so many raving loonies in this world that there’s a possibility that fame and money may have been the motivation for this extreme multiple birth. Go get up the duff with a gaggle of babies, create a media maelstrom and cash in on the morbid curiousity that will inevitable ensue.
I can not comprehend why any sane IVF specialist would transfer 8 embryos in one cycle or alternatively allow a woman to have a timed sexual intercourse cycle or IUI (Intra-Uterine Insemination) with hyperstimulated ovaries releasing 8 or more eggs?!?! It makes no sense. The woman already had six children… I wonder if she was even infertile? If she wasn’t infertile then there was a higher than average chance (compared to other infertile IVF patients) that the embryos would implant. The doctors all know how fucking insanely risky it is for babies born in such high multiples – the likelihood of them being born premature was likely 100%. The odds of major neurological and medical conditions like cerebral palsy, anaemia, blindness, heart defects and lung immaturity is really high even in premature twins let alone octuplets. It just makes no sense.
If this woman really has (as the media is currently suggesting and her agents appear to be confirming) deliberately gotten pregnant with an unusually high multiple birth for the media attention and possible financial gain… then I think her actions are thoroughly reprehensible. If her doctors were in anyway complicit in this scheme then I think they have at best shown extremely poor judgement and at worst are basically responsible for any ongoing medical conditions these poor babies may incur and ought have their medical licenses revoked and be held liable for the ongoing care of the octuplets.
Extreme multiples are usually considered to be mistakes in the IVF profession and are often regarded as embarrassment to the reproductive technology industry. I remember my IVF specialist telling me about one of his patients who was pregnant with quads – only two embryos were implanted but both had split and become two sets of identical twins… while the odds of such things are incalculable Dr IVF expressed the sentiment that it wasn’t a desirable outcome and he also mentioned that a patient with quads doesn’t reflect creditably on his clinic.
Doesn’t matter which way I look at this scenario it just looks like really bad medicine…. and the babies are the ones likely to bear the lifelong brunt of it.
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Update: So as more details come to light in this bizarre baby grubbing case it seems that her other children were the result of IVF treatments also. So why the fuck would her doctors agree to transfer 8 embryos into a woman whose history demonstrates her fertility is sufficient for the embryos to take??? I’ve gone from empathy to disbelief to anger over this story in the last few days. How could anyone let this stupid bint deliberately have an extreme multiple birth which would expose the babies to unacceptable risks of serious congenital defects? I don’t fucking get it. NO ONE was thinking about the safety and health of the potential babies when the procedure was undertaken.
From BBC news article – I hope some punitive action is taken against these quacks.
She (Nadya Suleman the mother) has come under criticism for choosing to have more children through in vitro fertilisation when she already has six.Her other children, aged 2-7, were also conceived through in vitro fertilisation, Ms Suleman’s mother has said.
"To put this many embryos back in a woman who is so young and had proven fertility is completely irresponsible," reproductive endocrinologist Suleena Kansal Kalra of the University of Pennsylvania told AFP news agency.
The American Society of Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) is investigating how Ms Suleman became pregnant with octuplets and may "take appropriate action", the agency said in a statement. The ASRM recommends that women of Ms Suleman’s age have no more than two embryos implanted.
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