That’s a question I was asked more than once, in light of this week’s story about the birth of octuplets.
For the answer, I’ll refer to this article in Slate. The largest reported number of fetuses in a single womb is 15.
The limit is not so much the number of fetuses, but the combined size and weight. As Christopher Beam explains, “once the total weight of the babies inside reaches about 12 pounds, the uterus goes into labor. The greater the number of fetuses, the earlier the labor will occur.”
So there you have it. As an aside, I wonder if the mother will be the next celebrity multiples mother, a la Kate Gosselin, of Jon and Kate fame.
Related posts:
- Media coverage of multiple births
- Did an abortion ban kill this woman?
- In 2007, Germany will Pay 33K for Making Babies
- Dumping babies
- Spare-part babies
- Border crossing babies
- RIP VBAC?
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Having seen more than one woman carry > 12 lbs of babies at a time, I can assure you that the uterus does not "go into labor" because a weight limit is passed.
The young woman already had 6 children and is a single mother, yet doctors still gave her fertility treatments and implanted 8 embryos. What was going on in that doctor’s brain?
“What was going on in that doctor’s brain”
Money
I think as this story plays out and more is revealed, there might be even more questions raised. Today, I was interviewed by a local news station to comment on the possibility that this was an “inside job”, meaning that the woman may have been a fertility clinic employee. I don’t know if there is a shred of truth to it, but I offered my technical opinion on the implausibility of an untrained person doing a successful embryo transfer. I also commented on the mathematics of embryos number on today’s blog post.
I can tell you that the infertility community is up in arms about this. Most want this woman’s head on a platter (figuratively speaking). Many women with complicated infertility needs are concerned that the idiots in Congress or in State Governments will make rules akin to the UK rules that have encouraged IVF Tourism.
This woman, in my mind, is both an aberration and an abomination, and if this doctor is in the USA (not a given), he should lose his license. The chances of a HOM with 8 embryos being TRANSFERRED are rather large – even if octuplets are not as likely. There was no good medical reason if she had had 6 prior successful IVFs (with twins from the latest round) and was under 35. Plus, the latest is that she was using her own frozen embryos which, with 6 previous successful births means there was no reason to believe all wouldn’t take!
I, for one, am livid at the utter selfishness of this immature little brat.
As she is a single mother at 35 years-old and already with six children, one has to ask just how she supports this family (trust fund? Just kidding.)
So now with a new delivery of eight, who will all require a month’s hospitalization, if we are to believe the news stories, one can only wonder how the staff needed to take care of this family of fourteen will be obtained. I suppose there will be commercial opportunities, there always are, but it would seem the novelty of these engineered births has worn off with time; there is a story every couple of years. Local news spreads, exclusives, some local benefactor kicks up and donates a house or van. It has become repetitive.
One might feel sorry for the older of these children, they will be conscripted to provide care during their teenage years beyond what is expected in normal families.
And you have to wonder about this “mother” who evidently felt her own desires to bear this litter-sized birth trumped her responsibilities to her other children, some of whom have disabilities and need special attention. But the consequences of this will not be borne largely by this feckless and irresponsible woman, or by her unconscionably complicit doctor. She is entitled to her autonomy, perverted as it is. And he is only trying to help her, not make judgments, right?
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