California mother and octuplets doing "very well" (Roundup)

Jan 27, 2009, 16:00 GMT

Los Angeles - A mother and her eight newborn babies were doing 'very, very well' Tuesday, just a day after only the second delivery in the world of live octuplets, doctors said.

The six boys and two girls were delivered within five minutes of each other by caesarean section Monday morning. The delivery surprised doctors who had been expecting 'only' seven babies.

Dr Mandhir Gupta, a neonatologist at Kaiser Permanente Bellflower Medical Centre, told ABC's Good Morning America that the eight babies were in stable condition.

Two of the newborns who had initially been put on ventilators, were now breathing on their own.

'Only three babies need some sort of oxygen through the nose right now, but they are breathing on their own,' Gupta said. 'The babies are doing actually very, very well.'

The babies weighed in at between 880 grams and 1.47 kilograms. All eight will spend about two months in an incubator, the hospital said, but the mother, who plans to breastfeed all her children, will be able to leave hospital in one week.

The team of 46 doctors and helpers had expected 'only' seven babies, Dr Karen Maples was quoted as saying. 'My eyes got the size of saucers,' when she realized there was an eight baby, she said.

'It is quite easy to miss a baby when you have seven,' said Dr Harold Henry. 'When you're anticipating seven, it is extremely difficult to perform an ultrasound.'

'The delivery process went very smoothly,' he added. 'We practised several dry runs and the actual delivery process only took about five minutes to deliver all eight babies.'

No further information was released about the parents.

A Nigerian-born woman in Texas gave birth to octuplets in 1998, seven of whom survived. One of the babies was born on December 8, 1998, the others twelve days later.

All of them were extremely premature and weighed only between 300 grams and 800 grams. The smallest baby died after one week.