Daniela Maurer's List: Essay3

• only the second known case in the US
• The US Government estimates that the average American parent spends $269,520  (£191,298) raising a child from birth to 17. At this rate the mother of the  octuplets could be facing a total childcare bill of more than $2.1 million by  2026 – before adjustments for inflation.
• The mother had probably taken fertility drugs, they said, which have resulted in  a boom in multiple births over recent years – mostly twins.
• serious health risks, including breathing problems and neurological damage. The  mother also had an increased risk of haemorrhage, he said.

• The world’s first live octuplets were born in March 1967 in Mexico City. All  died within 14 hours. In the US the first live octuplets were born in Houston in  1998, three months premature. The smallest died a week after the birth. The  surviving siblings turned 10 in December.

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• Fertility treatments raise a wide range of ethical and social issues. We focus  on one specific issue: the interests and welfare of the potential child. These  factors are often cited as important reasons for withholding fertility  treatment. We contend that they are almost never relevant, and moreover, we  support a wider provision of fertility treatment
• that although there was no upper age limit for treatment in law, concerns for  the potential children ruled out treating elderly women
• that couples seeking fertility treatment should somehow prove their fitness as  potential parents
• are the interests of this potential child better served if he or she is born to  these parents or if he or she never exists at all?

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• They are made from the standard starting materials--an egg and a sperm.

• While single-embryo transfer rates for in vitro fertilization procedures  languish below 2% in the United States, the Europeans are hitting astonishing  highs with impressive results.

   

  Aimed at reducing the growing multiple-pregnancy rate--which was once  accepted as an unavoidable side effect of invitro fertilization  (IVF)--single-embryo transfer (SET) has been enthusiastically embraced across  much of Europe, particularly in the Nordic countries and Belgium
• the risk of having a pregnancy involving triplets or more per ART cycle was  almost 7%, and the risk of a twin pregnancy was 29%.
• While SET becomes the standard of care in many European countries, fertility  experts in the United States continue to regard it as a r
• I don't think it's ever going to happen until it is mandated or there's  insurance coverage for fertility treatment in the U.S.,"

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• As a safeguard against octuplets, only a few are implanted at a time. The spare  embryos face an uncertain future. Several hundred thousand are currently  languishing in cold storage in the United States. Untold numbers have been  disposed of as medical waste
• By contrast they fiercely oppose stem-cell research on the ground that it  destroys embryos--even when the embryos used for research are IVF extras. IVF  yields babies, which is generally something the "pro-family" right approved of.

• The issue is, of course, far from settled. In America, as elsewhere, people  are confused about the status of embryos and whether they have any rights. One  state that has addressed the issue is Louisiana. It maintains that an  unimplanted embryo is a "juridical person" with the same rights as anyone else.  In 2005, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, state police with flat-bottomed boats  rescued 1,400 frozen embryos from a flooded hospital. One of the embryos thus  rescued was born earlier this year. His name is Noah.

  
  

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• FOR Natallie Evans, it was the last chance to have her own child. Diagnosed with  pre-cancerous tumours in both ovaries in 2000, she had healthy eggs extracted  for in vitro fertilisation (IVF) with her partner's sperm before her ovaries  were removed. Half a dozen embryos were created and stored. Six months later,  when the couple broke up, her partner asked that they be destroyed.

• He noted the serious and sometimes lethal complications and crushing medical  costs that often come with high-multiple births.

• The chances that the eight babies born Monday were conceived naturally are  infinitesimal, infertility specialists and doctors in maternal-fetal medicine  say. Today's reproductive experts have the tools and the know-how to avoid such  high-risk pregnancies -- and often try desperately to do so.
  
• Despite that hopeful report, however, higher-order multiple births (defined as  three or more babies born together) are dangerous for babies and the mother.  Infants born prematurely face the risk of breathing problems and brain injuries  that may cause permanent disability. Problems in premature babies, including  learning disabilities or cognitive delays, are often not apparent until years  after their births
• "But it really is still up to the individual physician. There aren't any laws or  legal ramifications to it."
• The babies could have been conceived through in vitro fertilization, in which  eggs and sperm are combined in the lab and a specified number of the  healthiest-looking embryos are transferred to the uterus. That scenario seems  unlikely because fertility doctors are asked to adhere to strict guidelines that  limit the number of embryos transferred. As a result, higher-order multiple  births resulting from in vitro fertilization are uncommon.
  
• A more likely scenario is that the mother of the octuplets received infertility  drugs in a procedure called controlled ovarian hyperstimulation. The treatment,  which is typically used to achieve pregnancy in women who do not ovulate,  stimulates the ovaries to produce a number of eggs. As the eggs near maturity,  the patient usually has artificial insemination
• Some patients with infertility problems opt to try controlled ovarian  hyperstimulation instead of in vitro fertilization because it is far less  expensive -- about $2,000 to $3,000 instead of $10,000
• they can later abort some of the embryos if a higher-order pregnancy occurs.  Many patients dislike this practice, called selective reduction, said Dr. Harold  Henry, director of maternal-fetal medicine at Kaiser Permanente. Some have  religious or ethical objections to aborting any of the fetuses; others don't  want to risk losing the entire pregnancy.
  
• Infertility experts generally try to prevent multiple births because of the  myriad potential health problems for mother and babies and because such births  consume enormous financial resources for hospitals, health insurers and families
• Higher-order multiples are always born prematurely, often before 30 weeks  gestation. Such babies are at risk of respiratory distress, infection and damage  to their other organs, particularly the brain and gut. Premature infants have a  higher rate of death in the first month of life than babies born full-term.  Later, these babies are at higher risk for developmental problems and cerebral  palsy
• You're looking at an average stay in intensive care of one month to six months  depending on how they do

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