Jesus… absolutely no one is saying that all multiples are doomed to a life of failure and poor health.
But to deny that multiples (and their mom) face higher health risks is to completely ignore facts.
This table of the risk of advanced maternal age and risk of loss stops at age 50
“So, don’t generalize about multiples.”
We all know smokers who died of old age at 95. But you can still generalize that smoking raises the risk of terrible outcomes.
Actually, smoking is safer than carrying quads if you look at the odds of serious health sequelae.
Welll she is due this summer. Let’s see how she and the 4 babies do - I of course hope they all come through this fine. Remember, the age of the eggs also plays a big role and these are not her eggs.
I, personally, don’t think it makes sense to compare twin and quad pregnancies in terms of risk.
I think posters are referring to the maternal risk factors (hypertension, low birth weight, miscarriage, gestational diabetes, etc) independent of the health and viability of the embryos. At least that’s how I read it.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2518679/
That is kind of old. I am still looking for recent statistics.
“Nottelling. “There should be a law against having more than two embryos implanted”. Are you serious? I have triplets who were born all weighing around six pounds and we were all home in four days. There are many sets of triplets in my town and the surrounding towns.”
I have a dear friend who has healthy triplets, now 16 yo. I’m glad yours were healthy. I had twins, weighing 2 lb 5 and 3 lb 1 who spent two months in the NICU (racking up a nice $1 mm tab). Sorry, I cannot be sanguine about the risk of multiples, and I’m “only” a twin mom. The human body isn’t meant to carry multiples. As a twin mom, I get annoyed when people think having twins is just twice-the-cute. No. It’s a serious stress on the mother’s health. I went from being a perfectly healthy 27 yo to having liver and kidney failure. And I was one of the lucky ones.
My H handles infertility patients (works with IVF clinics, though doesn’t actually do the transfers). He absolutely abides by the reproductive medicine society guidelines.
I know several twin moms, including myself. None had any trouble except gaining more pregnancy weight and the twins are all fine. The risks are for the mother to decide. It is certainly not a matter for government decree. It is a personal matter between the woman and her doctor. I would venture that in the German woman’s case the doctor never expected all four embryos to implant. He likely implanted four hoping for one to take. Again, a matter of medical judgment given her age.
The fact that the eggs are young does not make this any less of a stress on her body. The risk is still high for the babies due to the fact that there are four of them.
I think we all are hoping for the best.
"know several twin moms, including myself. None had any trouble except gaining more pregnancy weight and the twins are all fine. The risks are for the mother to decide. It is certainly not a matter for government decree. It is a personal matter between the woman and her doctor. "
I agree it’s not for govt to decide. But the reproductive medicine community sure as heck can advocate best practices and censure those docs who don’t follow them.
The fact that you and your twin mom friends did fine is like saying “I smoked for 20 years and didn’t get lung cancer.” Terrific, but irrelevant; twins are high risk by definition and higher order multiples even more so.
“It is certainly not a matter for government decree. It is a personal matter between the woman and her doctor.”
Sure, but ethical guidelines should shape the doctor’s choices. You don’t need to have government interference to prevent this. It’s unethical to implant 4 embryos under almost any circumstances; certainly when young donor eggs are involved and there’s no reason to expect problems with implantation.
Um, no. The risks are known medical risks associated with various factors.
“one half of those with quadruplets have at least 1 disabled child”
Bearing in mind that babies who didn’t make it aren’t included in the one half.
Current life expectancy for women in Germany is 83.
So assuming best outcome, she might make it till they turn 18, provided stress of being pregnant at such an advanced age does not exacerbate dormant health conditions.
Raise your hand if you would choose to become pregnant knowing you would die by the time your child graduated high school.
To consciously make that choice for your unborn children seems pretty cold to me.
Would you have applauded your own mother had she made that choice?
My father died before I graduated from high school, and I feel the lack of having a father still, at 57.
These kids don’t even have a father before they are born.
I had twins that were 6 weeks early. 5 lb 1 oz, and 6 lb 1 oz. Purely anecdotally, I have found that first time mothers tend to have twins that are more premature (I was a first time Mom). Mothers I know who had twins and they were not the first pregnancy had them from 2 weeks early to having them just after the due date. That was true for my sister and a cousin.
Hopefully, this woman’s pregnancy experiences will help her even though her age will not be.
Since subsequent babies tend to run larger, that is a good point.
I’ve compared the size from first to third and fourth pregnancies, who knows how large the 14, 15, 16th, & 17th will be!
“Subsequent babies tend to run large” is completely irrelevant for higher order multiples. It only applies to singletons.