From the New York Times, Associated Press:

The recent in vitro birth of octuplets to a woman who already had six children born through in vitro procedures has spurred new questions about the lack of regulation of the fertility industry.

Nearly a third of in vitro births involve twins or more. The government, along with professional associations, have been pushing fertility doctors to reduce that number, citing the disastrous health consequences that sometimes come with multiple births – infant mortality, low birth weights, long-term disabilities and thousands of dollars’ worth of medical care.

… [Nadya] Suleman, whose six older children range in age from 2 to 7, said three of them receive disability payments. She told NBC one is autistic, another has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, known as ADHD, and a third experienced a mild speech delay with “tiny characteristics of autism.” She refused to say how much they get in payments.

In California, a low-income family can receive Social Security payments of up to $793 a month for each disabled child. Three children would amount to $2,379.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 12th, 2009 at 2:49 pm and is filed under assisted reproduction, attention deficit disorder, autism, benefits. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.