Octuplets’ mother already had six children
LOS ANGELES, Jan 30, 2009 (AFP) - - The woman who gave birth to octuplets this week in California already had six children before undergoing fertility treatment for more, The Los Angeles Times reported on Friday.
The mother, who has kept her identity confidential, refused to selectively abort some of the embryos after a doctor implanted eight, her mother Angela Suleman, with whom she lives, told the daily.
Suleman said her daughter, whose marital status is unknown, had embryos implanted last year, and “they all happened to take.”
“What do you suggest she should have done? She refused to have them killed,” Suleman told the Times. “That is a very painful thing.”
When she gave birth to the octuplets, “I looked at those babies. They are so tiny and so beautiful,” her mother said.
Suleman did tell the paper raising 14 children would be a major challenge.
“It’s going to be difficult,” Suleman said, adding that her daughter’s father was going back to Iraq, where neighbors told the paper said he had worked as a contractor, to help support the family.
Neighbors in Whittier told the paper the mother of the octuplets had children — ages 7, 6, 5, 3 as well as 2-year-old twins — and lives with her mother.
Though obstetricians handling the case drew much media attention many medical ethicists and fertility specialists have been underwhelmed. Multiple births can endanger the mother’s health and often do lead to long-term health and developmental problems for the children.
The Times noted that under the guidelines of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, “US doctors normally would not implant more than two embryos at a time in a woman under the age of 35.”
The paper reported that the mother is believed to be 33, based on public records.
The six boys and two girls — only the second set of octuplets in history to be born alive — were delivered by Caesarian section on Monday roughly nine-and-half weeks premature at a medical center in Bellflower.
