Meghan Daum of the Los Angeles Times has octuplets derangement. So do I and I suspect many of you too as new information on the California babies dribbles out in the media - the mother’s previous six babies, her obsession with kids, her living with her parents, their recent bankruptcy filing, etc….

To her “Who? How? Why?” I’d like to add: “Who was her doctor?” and “What was he/she thinking?!”

In some European countries with national health insurance, doctors are limited to transfering just one embryo during in vitro fertilization. There are no such limits in America, where IVF is typically not covered by any insurance.

When I did a series on IVF in Minnesota last year, fertility doctors said they supported the idea of single-embryo transfer, simply because of the health risks of multiples to the mom as well as babies. But in the absence of such rules, they knew if they didn’t agree to transfer two or in rare cases three, another doctor down the street would.

But competitive pressure can’t possibly explain the EIGHT embryos transferred in California.

Here’s Daum’s piece. Cribsheeters?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009 at 10:38 am and is filed under IVF, Related Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.