As for how fast it was — I don’t doubt that they had good intentions and did things in the best manner for the babies but I still can’t comprehend how they got eight babies out in five minutes when it usually takes at least that long when a single baby is delivered by c-section. Many women describe the tugging and ‘rummaging around in your insides’ feeling as quite unpleasant and I can imagine that pulling that many babies out that fast could’ve been seriously uncomfortable and even painful for her. Yes, I know they did this out of concern for the babies but I can’t help but speculate on how she felt about the whole experience when it was such a whirlwind and a circus.

When I talked in my previous comment about doctors not always having communicative and informative relationships with their patients I was talking in more general terms about OBs and birth, not about this case in particular. I could go into more detail about how I came to this conclusion and formed this opinion but I’m tired of talking about this right now so I’m going to leave it. I might write another post about it in the near future though.

Thanks for the discussion and feedback! I’m closing comments now.

There was no mention of the father.

yeah, that was my thought too tabitha – when babies weigh that little and are that premature, the potential for immediate health crises is pretty high (lungs not fully developed, etc), and i just assumed that they whisked them out quickly in case they needed resuscitation/oxygen/heat. i’d guess any delays could be very risky. thus the teams of dr.s for each baby, to ensure each child had a maximum chance of survival.

“I disagree, however, that because the parents may have received fertility treatments (we don’t know that as of yet, though it’s pretty unlikely they didn’t) that they should expect a completely medicalised event.”

oh, i don’t think it has anything to do with fertility treatments that they had to have a medicalised birth, but the fact that they had 8 children at once! my only point in mentioning the fertility treatments is that (unless this was a natural biological miracle), medicine is what created this situation in the first place, and medicine is what allowed all 8 babies and the mother to survive. from beginning to end, this is a unique situation created by medicine. ideal? no – but i bet the mom is probably pretty grateful that she’s got (what appears to be) 8 very much wanted and healthy children.

re: drs developing relationships with their patients. of course. but i’m not sure we can infer from the little information we know that this was NOT the case here, and i guess i bristle at the immediate assumption that it wasn’t. in fact, given the amount of intensive monitoring she must’ve been under, i’d guess she probably had more of a relationship with her dr(s) than most women. whether that relationship was good or bad, we simply don’t know.