Show m mother ther starts ethical debate Ashley The Washington Post Public opinion seems to be cresting against her her own mother is rattled and now fertility experts are suggesting the case of Nadya Suleman and her constitutes a breach of medical guidelines Suleman 33 g gave ve birth to six boys and two girls by an 26 ata Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Bellflower Calif The miraculous event reportedly one of only two live births ever in inthe inthe inthe the United States States quickly quickly drew criticism after it was revealed that Suleman is single unemployed lives with her mother and already has six children including twins ranging in age from 2 to 7 Her daughter is not evil but she is obsessed with children She loves children she is vel very good with children but obviously she overdid herself her mother Angela Suleman told the Los Angeles Times She decided to have more embryos implanted in hopes of having just one more girl And look what happened Dear God The birth of eight babies to a woman who becomes responsible for 14 children is attracting a different set of worries from the medical community particularly fertility doctors who say it goes against the mission of their work to minimize risk high high risk multiple multiple birth birth pregnancy and safely safely provide a a woman with a asin asin sin T healthy bab babIt iS Ir 1 s also raising questions about the lax regulations covering doctors and clinics that provide such services It was a grave error whatever happened said Eleanor Nicoll a spokeswoman for the American Society for Reproductive Medicine which along with the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology provides medical guidelines for fertility treatments It should not have happened Eight children should not have been conceived and born Suleman has yet to reveal how the babies were conceived or which clinic or doctor was involved her publicist said she has reserved that part of her herstOl stOl story for now and Kaiser said it was not involved in inthe inthe inthe the conception Typically doctors use one of two procedures in vitro fertilization z tion whereby doctors combine eggs and sperm in a laboratory creating embryos and transfer a small number into the uterus The second is intrauterine insemination in which doctors stimulate the ovaries to produce eggs and follow that with artificial insemination In both procedures doctors said they work with two to three embryos or four at the vel very most But never eight For a woman in her early like Suleman guidelines for in vitro fertilization call for no nomore nomore nomore more than two transferred embryos Doctors work with few embryos s t to a V o a ci mu multi multi- ti- ti birth pregnancies which health ib th mother and babies Such pregnancies put a mother at ata ata ata a higher risk of premature labor and delivery They also put babies at increased risk of brain injuries underdeveloped lungs and intestines and cerebral palsy among other things The female body is designed to undergo what Lawr Lawrence nce Werlin medical director of the Coastal Fertility Center in Irvine Calif called the most significant physiological stress that can happen to the body Certainly you youcan youcan youcan can imagine what kind of stress that would be with a multi-fetal multi gestation I would certainly say that this is i's contral contrary to to what everyone else would do in our field Werlin added Its It's standard Werlin said for doctors to take a patients patient's history say how lo long g she has been trying to to get pregnant or how many children she has before beginning a fertility treatment He said theres there's no specific number of previous children or hoped hoped- hoped for for babies that determines treatment But in Suleman's case he said he doubted that she requested such a sizable brood I cant can't believe that she came in and said to the doctor that I want eight more children I cant can't believe that Werlin said chuckling And if she did I would say Im sorl sorry Im I'm not the person for you David Magnus director of the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics said that if the lets were produce cec d d tir through ough gli in vitro viti fertilization it would sp regulated infertility and reproduction field This is a huge problem Magnus Magnu said Youve got gota a virtually unregulated marketplace with tort law serving as regulation in the US U.S. Magnus said that US U.S. medical standards are not unlike those thoS of other countries but that US U.S. guidelines arc are laced with the language of you should rather than strict rules and sanctions The professional organizations should take a stricter line with doctors and clinics he said been vel very very loath loath to take that action But if you leave it up to the marketplace he added there will be abuses Suleman's babies who are still in the hospital with their mother were born bom 30 2 1 weeks into gestation weighing between one and anda a little more than three pounds They are breathing on their own according to doctors but are expected to stay in the hospital for weeks In the meantime Suleman has hired publicists to handle the hundreds of media inquiries es from around the world According to her spokesman Mike F Furtney the vel very bright vel very engaging Suleman has a degree in psychology and hopes to continue work toward a masters master's degree As for some of the criticism aimed at her Furtney said hopeful that when she tells the stol story people will change their opinion of her for 1 ih g t 4 g o oa t liP I |