to think that it is wrong for someone to have treatment that enabled them to have eight babies.

[wannaBe]

Of course it's good that the babies in question here are alive and appear to be doing well.

But this should never have been allowed to happen.

Women are not designed to give birth to litters of babies - this is evidenced by the fact it is not possible to carry this many babies to term, or even close to term. In fact it is pretty much accepted that if you fall pregnant with that many babies it is unlikely that they will all survive.

This woman was obviously desparate enough for a baby to have some kind of fertility treatment, and now she has eight babies, (eight children is something which most families do not contemplate over a lifetime, let alone in one go). Presumably she would have been offered the option of selective reduction when it was discovered she was carrying so many, but IMO it shouldn't get to that point - she should never have been given the kinds of drugs that enabled her to conceive that many babies in the first place.

It is just wrong on every level.

Lulumama that thought had just crossed my mind too

I love MN, todays lesson: fertitlity treatment and the inplantation of embryos

Hoe do we know that it was IVF though? When I had (private) fertility treatment, my doctor was very concerned about certain kinds of drug treatment because they result in high levels of twins and small-but-significant levels of triplets. As I'm a shorty he thought that multiples would be a big risk for me. She could just be an outlier that used these hormone treatments to stimulate ovulation - in which case there was no choice at all to have 8 embryos - and then as others have said it would be incredibly difficult to selectively abort some of the babies.

How do we know - breastfeeding and typing don't mix!

You see I don't think the medics will have thought this through properly. In so far as if and I say "if" they transfered 8 or more embryos they would have in no way expected 8 to implant. However there is a chance (I expect it's about the same odds as a lottery win). They have a duty to protect their patient and they should have protected her from this chance.

If however she had unprotected sex on hyper stim drugs (like I think the UK case that ended very sadly) then I guess that is her responsiblity.

YANBU

TC The sad stories do make the news. Anyone remember Mandy Allwood?

Good point don'tlookatme. Though I suspect conception (let alone survival) of multiples of this order are extremely rare and many people would not sell their story to a paper.

I agree that it is a flawed system Wannabe - but it is the only one available at present to such a person and I don't blame her for accepting it.

I am quite of eight babies - fantastic!

Apparently the odds of naturally concieved octuplets are somethink like trillions to one. In effect, it's impossible.

I can't quite bring myself to believe that medics would have implanted 8 embryo's. The dangers are just too high. Surely the media interest doesn't justify the risk to the mother and subsequent children? Maybe I'm naieve.

Firstly we have not yet been told that she was on any fertility treatment, and secondly we have no way of knowing how many of these babies are split embryos.

DH did point out yesterday (when discussing the 8th baby that was discovered at the 11th hour) that at least it evens things up you can be double/quadruple stuff rather than having an "odd" on

Have not read all the posts but I am extremely sceptical that US docs would transfer 8 embryos. They do not have the tight regs we have but they are not entirely without ethics (!), and it would be extremely unethical to transfer 8 knowing the most likely outcome would be the survival of none.

I expect that this is the result of fertility drugs used by the sub-fertile followed by sex without contraception. Which, IMO, is pretty irresponsible. This is probably why the woman has asked for her med details not to be released - she knows it would result in a media judge-a-thon.

There are recorded case of nine babies being born simultaneously to women before fertility treatment was available. While it is unlikely in this case, I think we are wrong to presume without the facts.

But we don't know exactly what feltility treatment this woman had, do we? (Feel free to correct me if we now do!)

In which case, how can we judge? So she MAY have had a sily amount of embryos implanted, but she may have just reacted extremely well (?) to a drug like Clomid. We don't know how many of these babies are identical, formed from one egg. There culd feasibly have been 2 sets of triplets and one set of twins there. Is 3 embryos an extortionately large number to have implanted? It may not be sensible but it's very easy for me to say that, who became pregnnat on the first night. I, thank God, have not had to suffer the sadness of infertility.

I don't eally agree with judging cases like this anyway... there's bound to be more than meets the eye. But if you have to, at least wait till we have the facts.

am wondering why the details are so sketchy.. unless the story in full will be sold to the highest bidder

Oh for goodness sake I can't type!

culd- could
pregnnat- pregnant
eally- really

Am going back to bed

It may be that she had drugs to stimulate egg production in preparation for harvesting. What I think you are told to do is to abstain from sex when ovulating to ensure that you don't end up with lots of babies at once. I think that was what happened with that lady, was it mandy allwood, who had 7 but they all died.

Lulumama perhaps they know that then the details of their babies conception will be bandied about in this way and wish to avoid it happening?

No matter what we think about the medical intervention they may or may not have had, fact is this woman is now a mother to 8 babies and I'm sure they are at the forefront on her mind, not explaining to the waiting public how it happened.

Why is it anything to do with us?!

why is it anythign to do with us?

well, it has been all over the news. it is an incredible story regardless of how these babies cam e to be

It is, of course an incredible story. But look at all the controversy it's already caused. As I said earlier, we don't know what type of treatment this woman had. We don't know how many of these babies are identical.

I'm sure all these details will come out eventually, but as for why the details are so sketchy... pressumably the family have bigger things to worry about now than satisfying public interest. We will have to wait

Yes but a title thread of 'Do you think it's wrong for someone to have fertility treatment enabling them to have 8 babies'.... when we don't even know she DID have fertility treatment, let alone what kind. I DO think it's wrong to judge (at the moment!) in these circumstances and my heart goes out to the family.

Not everyone gets treated with stimulating drugs as part of IVF treatment - some people are treated with them as the whole treatment itself, in which case you're supposed to have sex (or IUI)! It's very difficult to guage how women will respond - some don't at all, some will be very sensitive, as this woman may be. In every standard curve, you will always get outliers.

Or it could be the case that she wasn't supposed to have sex, but thought that it would be OK if she used contraception, which then failed. It would be understandable that she thought that the chances of conceiving would be low if she'd tried for ages without success (and why else would you have treatment?).