Posted on 06/18/2007 8:08:49 AM PDT by Fawn
Two Sets in the U.S. Are Born on the Same Day
- It is a rare event in the United States, indeed in the world -- the birth of sextuplets. Out of more than 4 million births in the U.S. in 2005, just 85 deliveries involved five or more babies. Making the occasion rarer recently was the birth of two sets of sextuplets just 10 hours apart.
On June 12, Ryan and Brianna Morrison of Minnesota became parents of four boys and two girls, born after just 22 weeks in their mother's womb.
And in Phoenix that same day, after just 30 weeks of pregnancy, Jenny Masche gave birth to three boys and three girls.
The joy of the birth announcements, however, was tempered with news that three of the sextuplets born prematurely to the Morrisons died. Lincoln Sean Morrison died Friday, following the deaths of two of his brothers, Tryg and Bennet, on Wednesday.
The three surviving babies remain in critical condition in the neonatal intensive care unit at Children's Hospital in Minneapolis. Hospital officials say no further information will be released. The babies' weighed between only 11 ounces and 1.3 pounds at birth.
An "extremely premature" infant -- 22 weeks or less-- has about a 1 percent to 10 percent chance of surviving according to the American Medical Association. At 25 weeks of gestation, the odds increase to between 50 percent and 80 percent.
If a fetus can remain in utero until 30 weeks, the odds of surviving increase dramatically -- to better than 90 percent.
"There's a small amount of room for hope that at least one of the babies might survive," University of Iowa pediatrics professor Dr. Edward F. Bell told the Minneapolis Star Tribune. "There's a handful of 22-week old babies have survived, but it is a rare event."
Both sextuplets mothers consulted fertility doctors to become pregnant.
Brianna Morrison and her husband, both 24, reportedly spent more than a year trying to conceive and then began taking fertility drugs, in particular Follistim, which causes the ovary to produce an egg. In some women, the ovaries release many eggs at one time in an over- response to the drug.
The life-threatening risks to mother and child, and the life-long problems that a multiple-birth child can face if they do survive, have some in the medical profession questioning the wisdom of "fertility on demand."
"This is a serious medical complication [multiple births from fertility drugs] and predictably leads to extreme prematurity," suggested Dr. Richard J. Paulson of the USC Keck School of Medicine.
"It's one of the worse things that could happen to you," said the infertility specialist.
Others question why a woman in her early 20s who had been trying to get pregnant for about a year did not have other options, like trying longer.
Jenny Masche, 32 and her husband, Bryan, 29, used artificial insemination to conceive and were shocked when an ultrasound revealed she was carrying six fetuses.
Both the Morrisons and the Masches were approached by their doctors about the option of "selective reduction" -- the aborting of all but one to three of the fetuses.
The intention is to increase the likelihood the remaining unborn children will survive, thrive and be delivered full term.
Both families declined, chosing to leave the outcome "in God's hands." The Morrisons are committed Christians who met at Bethany College of Missions and married in 2005.
"So then the question arises -- given the risks to the mother and the babies -- should the professional norm be to tell people, 'We will have selective abortion,' during the pregnancy?" wondered renowned bioethicist Alexander Capron.
"For many people it is an unacceptable alternative." said the professor of law and medicine at the University of Southern California.
"They wanted to get rid of three? How can I do that," Jenny Masche told azfamily.com, a Web site for KTVK-TV in Phoenix. "I have had a couple of miscarriages already. There's no guarantee that I am going to carry these."
She also was encouraged by the birth and survival of the celebrated McCaughey septuplets in Iowa 1997. At the time Kenny and Bobbi McCaughey also declined selective reduction, saying they would "put it in God's hands."
The babies were born nine weeks premature. Five of the children are in good health and 2 of the septuplets have cerebral palsy.
"Maybe if God wants to, He can reduce them on His own, but I know this is not something that we can do," said Jenny Masche.
But USC's Capron said, "It is always an interesting situation when people rely on modern medicine and talk about God's will -- because if it were simply God's will, then you'd say, 'If you're not becoming pregnant, that must be God's will.'
"But people instead say, 'No, God's will is that I use medical interventions," he added. "I guess] that is a view of God's will."
Capron, who also co-chairs the Pacific Center for Health Policy and Ethics at USC, considers adoption a viable option for becoming a parent that many couples reject when deciding to start a family.
"If the idea is that you want to be a parent, there are a lot of children out there who need parents," the bioethicist said. "And the notion that you have to use artificial means to become biologically pregnant, and a parent in that way, is not very persuasive to me."
"If what you are saying is: 'I want to pass on my genes, which are very special to me and to the world, and the only way to do that is to reproduce biologically, rather than the act of parenting,' I sympathize with that," he said. "But I am not one who believes you should run great risks to do it."
But the author of "Law, Science and Medicine," was careful to point out he would never advocate legislating a person's parenting options.
Aswini Anburajan contributed to this report.
(2) God wills that human beings use their ingenuity to advance medical science in order to accomplish the aforementioned ends of that science.
(3) There is therefore zero inconsistency in what these patients are saying: the inconsistency is in those who argue that doctors should murder innocents "for the greater good."
Do you think that a person who can’t have a baby is obligated (Gods Will) to use medical science? Is the Christian Church against this?
That occurred to me too. I see it all the time in the forum of moms that i am a member of. I love the ladies, but many of them consistently ascribe to God what THEY want to happen or to fulfill their own personal needs.
I can see not aborting babies of course, but to pull God out and use Him as a tool to get your own way is not good.
No one is advocating abortion here. Fawn is not, the dr is not, I am not.
But selective reduction is science, if you want to get technical. There is an inconsistency here and you refusing to admit it or see it does not make it go away.
As much as I am pro-life, women were not meant/made to carry litters. Prayers for these families.
I’m still shaking my head over the fact that they gave a 24 year old fertility drugs after only a year. At 24 she still had plenty of time to keep trying and a year isn’t *that* long to try to conceive. I have several friends who tried longer than that before actually becoming pregnant with no intervention. And they were all in their 30s.
There is a family in NJ that had twins twice with fertility drugs, decided they wouldn’t mind if it happened again, and got sextuplets - fortunately mother and babies did very well.
Mrs VS
Oh, no, of course not.
But selective reduction is science, if you want to get technical.
It's also abortion and, therefore, murder.
There is an inconsistency here
I agree: doctors who have a sacred responsibility to save lives shouldn't be taking them. It's very inconsistent.
I know many couples who, faced with infertility, chose not to use IVF transfers or ovary stimulating drugs precisely because of the risk of multiple fetuses or discarded embryos.
Women need to be better informed about the risks of fertility treatments. A few hours spent watching a tiny life slip away in the local hospital’s NICU ought to wake them up.
Do you pray for a safe trip when you get into your car?
?? What does that have to do with the price of tea in China?
It's amazing to me that "God's will" is invoked so often in such cases, when it seems to me that undergoing the IVF in the first place is contradicting God's will.
My BIL/SIL did the same thing. Strict, Orthodox Catholics, tried for a decade to get pregnant and couldn't. They refused adoption because they didn't think they could love a child "not their own," and went for the IVF - and then, selective reduction. Then they couldn't for the life of them understand what the fuss was about.
Should you have a car? It’s technology. If you go ahead and get one, should you then ask God to watch over you?
I think this is great! I see nothing negative about it. People complain that people are not having children and then complain when they have six. No wonder kids are so confused.
I didn’t say it wasn’t murder, of course it is and I don’t agree that it should ever be chosen. I don’t even agree with abortion in any case, including rape and incest. If it’s murder, it’s murder.
I’m trying to make a totally different point. I hope you can see past that one issue and address the point I’m trying to make, even if you don’t agree with it.
In which case wouldn't it have been wiser to abstain from sex, lower the dosage, and/or wait for a cycle where fewer eggs were released? Or was that what the doctor advised and the patient did what she wanted to instead?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.