How could a woman conceive octuplets?
“It would be very unlikely that this would be natural,” said James Airoldi, maternal fetal medicine specialist and director of Obstetrics at St. Luke’s Hospital and Health Network in Bethlehem, Pa. “It’s very likely this was the result of some form of ovarian stimulation with the use of fertility drugs.” This method would cause the ovaries to produce more follicles (each of which releases an egg) than normal. “In vitro fertilization won’t get you this [octuplets], because most doctors who do in vitro fertilization will only put two or three embryos back,” Airoldi said, adding that even if a doctor inserted three embryos back into a woman’s uterus and one of these split to produce twins, you’d only get four embryos. “There’s no doctor who would’ve put seven or eight embryos back in. That would be totally irresponsible of any doctor,” he said. The likely cause: so-called ovarian stimulation and fertility drugs, which cause a woman to produce more eggs than normal.
