Dr. Judith Albert, Medical Director

It’s hard to avoid thinking about octuplets these days. Nadya Suleman’s predicament is fascinating and frightening, and images of her are everywhere-on the morning news shows, on the Internet, on the minds of my patients.  Not surprisingly, my friends and acquaintances want to know, “So what’s YOUR take on the octuplets?”, assuming I would have some point of reference, given what I do for a living.  I struggle with an answer, because everything about this case is an aberration.  A single mom with six children goes to the infertility clinic because she wants to have more children and they thaw and transfer all of her embryos at once??  Nope, I can truly say I have never seen anything like that before.

I will strongly advocate for the reproductive rights of women everywhere, but as a practicing Reproductive Endocrinologist, I also have to use sound medical judgment to guide decision-making regarding the choices made in ART.  Chock it up to the differences between California and Pittsburgh, or any other explanation you like, but I think that our patients suffering from infertility “get it”-having one child at a time is their goal.  RHS’s average number of embryos transferred for patients under 35 years of age is 1.8. Fortunately, the vast majority of IVF clinics that report their data also get it.

OK, reality check completed, let’s get on with helping patients get the best treatment available to achieve their goals!

To read Dr. Kubik’s take on the octuplets, check out her quotes in  the Tribune Review’s coverage of the story: http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_611387.html