Local Doctor Calls Octuplet Birth Outrageous

By: | News Channel 7
Published: January 30, 2009

News of the eight births has fertility doctors questioning why someone would agree to implant eight embryos in a woman who already has six children, because the risk of those embryos becoming viable is so high.
As doctors in California announce the successful birth of the octuplets, fertility specialist are wondering how this pregnancy could have happened. At Piedmont Reproductive Endocrinology Group in Greenville, Dr. John Nichols says only in extremely rare cases can he imagine using eight embryos.

He says, "Ninety-eight to ninety-nine percent of us would never do what was done in this case."

He says no matter how infertile someone is you have to consider all those eggs to be potential pregnancies.

Dr. Nichols says, "That's outrageous. It is unbelievable all eight would take."

He says the most he would consider is five eggs and that would be in a patient over 40 having failed other attempts at In vitro.

He says, "She would be considered under 35. Good prognosis plus six kids. That is a patient you would only be strongly looking at one embryo two at the most."

There was one other case, where a woman in Houston gave birth to octuplets in the 80's. She lost one of the babies, but as Dr. Nichols points out that was through fertility drugs. In vitro is much more likely to produce a pregnancy and the doctor should have taken that into consideration because a pregnancy so large can be very dangerous for the babies.

He says, "The long term affects for these children with prematurity you don't know what is going to happen."

Dr. Nichols says there are no laws in place to regulate how many embryos can be implanted. He says that is up to the patient and her doctor, but there are guidelines and they show for a woman of this mother's age it should have been no more than three.
Dr. Nichols says when women first started getting In vitro back in the 80's, eight embryos would not have been uncommon. However, the procedure has become so exact that number would only be used in extremely rare cases if at all.