Octuplets born ‘screaming and kicking’ in California

California, January 26: Having triplets, or even twins, is a big deal, but a California woman has just given birth to eight babies. A total of six boys and two girls were born on Monday in a hospital south of Los Angeles, making them the world's second live-born set of octuplets.

Dr. Karen Maples of the Kaiser Permanante hospital in Bellflower did not identify the mother, on request of privacy, but stated that the babies were in stable condition and doing well.

The octuplets weighed between 1 pound and 15 ounces to 3 pounds and 4 ounces, and came out from 10:43 a.m. to 10:48 a.m.

Doctors had planned in advance to deliver the babies by Caesarian section, but they were only expecting seven babies. Dr Maples stated that they were quite surprised when an eighth baby appeared. “My eyes got to be the size of saucers. We just went on and delivered the babies.”

Doctors said it took a lot of manpower to make the delivery a success. One of the three doctors divulged that "We actually had 46 team members. They were not exactly in the same operating room.

“We actually used four different delivery rooms to deliver the babies. As the babies were delivered they were transferred to the team in various rooms."

The delivery went off without a hitch and there were no complications from the surgery. Dr Maples said, “We planned well and it was well executed. It was exciting, a little anxious. But we were prepared.”

Doctors said the babies were born nine weeks premature but are in stable condition. Two newborns were placed on ventilators and a third required oxygen. Dr Maple said the mother should be released in a week but that the babies would be kept under observation in the hospital for at least two months.

Dr Mandhir Gupta, a neo-natalologist who cared for the infants, said the mother was a “Strong woman, so she probably will be able to handle all eight babies."

Dr. Richard Paulson, director of the fertility program at the USC Medical School, called the event “unbelievably rare. When people use fertility drugs, 80 percent even then are single births. The vast majority of the others are twins.

“However fertility experts consider the birth of more than two kids with fertility medication to be not a medical triumph, but a serious complication. We do not ever intend to give someone octuplets.”

The first known case of octuplet birth in the United States was in a Houston family. They were conceived through fertility treatment in 1998. Seven survived, who celebrated their tenth birthday on Dec. 8, 2008.

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the largest multiple births ever recorded was of nine babies in Sydney, Australia, in 1971. Only six survived.

Three other octuplet births have been recorded in the past 13 years; in Spain, Britain and Turkey. In one case, six children survived; in the other two, all eight children died.