Hi all,
Don't know if anyone saw this yet.
Ellen Shein,
Tel Aviv
Octuplets Born in California Are Second Set in U.S. History
2009-01-27 10:47:58.536 GMT
By Thomas Penny
Jan. 27 (Bloomberg) -- A woman gave birth to six boys and
two girls at a hospital in California, only the second birth of
octuplets in the U.S., doctors said.
The babies, who weighed from 1 pound 8 ounces (680 grams)
to 3 pounds 4 ounces, were delivered by cesarean section early
yesterday, Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Bellflower,
California, said in a statement on its Web Site. They were born
nine weeks prematurely to a woman whose name hasn't been released
by the hospital.
Medical staff, who thought there were seven babies, were
surprised to find an eighth baby who hadn't appeared on
ultrasound scans, they said at a televised news conference.
"It's incredibly easy to miss one baby when you are
anticipating seven babies," Dr. Harold Henry, who helped lead
the team, told reporters. "Ultrasound doesn't show you
everything."
Henry said the birth, which involved a team of 46 people,
had gone "flawlessly." The team had carried out a series of
"dry runs" in preparation for the delivery, with the last one
just minutes before the multiple birth.
Each of the babies cried spontaneously after birth, a good
sign, the doctors said. The first 72 hours are the most critical
for the newborns, who were doing well, the hospital said. Two
were on ventilators, a third on oxygen and the rest were
breathing on their own, the Associated Press reported.
The hospital didn't say whether the octuplets' mother had
used fertility drugs. She plans to breastfeed all the babies, AP
cited doctors as saying.
"She's a very strong woman, so she probably will be able to
handle all eight babies," Dr. Mandhir Gupta, a neonatologist
involved in the birth, told the AP.
Preliminary research shows it is only the second time
octuplets have been born in the U.S., the hospital said. The
first U.S. set was born in Houston in 1998. One died after a week
and the other seven have just celebrated their 10th birthday, the
AP said.
For Related News and Information:
Search for stories on the octuplets' birth: NSE OCTUPLETS <GO>
Top U.S. news: TOP US <GO>
Top health care news: TOP HEA <GO>
--Editors: Heather Langan, John Deane
To contact the reporter on this story:
Thomas Penny in London at +44-20-7673-2532 or
[log in to unmask]
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Peter Torday at +44-20-7330-7539 or
[log in to unmask]
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