Mom draws heat over her octuplets

Los Angeles Times

LOS ANGELES — A beaming Dr. Karen Mapes appeared on “Larry King Live” this week to discuss the epic birth of octuplets she supervised at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Bellflower, but the ticker at the bottom of the screen said it all: “Octuplets Outrage.”

The story of Whittier, Calif., mom Nadya Suleman has quickly turned from medical miracle to public fury — so much so that Suleman complained in an interview Friday on NBC’s “Today” show that society is unfairly judging her.

“I feel as though I’ve been under the microscope because I chose this unconventional life,” she said, suggesting there is a double standard because she’s a single mother.

Suleman is an unemployed graduate student, lives with her parents and already has six children under age 8.

She has become a lightning rod for criticism for the nation’s health-care woes, the economic crisis and the medical ethics of in-vitro fertilization.

The reaction is decidedly different than what occurred in 1998, when the first set of octuplets born in the United States was met with curiosity more than scorn.

“Ten years ago, this would have been a medical miracle — heartwarming, everyone would have been thrilled,” said Allen Mayer, a crisis-management specialist in Los Angeles. “If everyone was riding high and feeling flush ... it would be more of a ‘live and let live’ attitude. Now everyone is counting pennies.”

Much frustration comes from questions Suleman has yet to answer: What responsible fertility clinic would transfer so many embryos into a 33-year-old mother who already had six children and said she made it clear she did not believe in selective reduction? How is she planning to provide both financial and emotional support to so many children?

Kaiser declined to say how much Suleman’s care is costing. Suleman’s care, goes far beyond even the scale for complicated deliveries, with 46 doctors, nurses and assistants in the delivery room. The average daily charge for one baby with “significant problems” is $3,063.

And the average charge per day for one post-partum stay without an operating procedure is $3,029. Using this data as a conservative estimate, the 12-day-old octuplets have racked up nearly $300,000 in charges. Suleman was hospitalized for more than nine weeks.