Octuplets doing well

An American mother has given birth to octuplets - the babies, six boys and two girls were born at the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center at Bellflower hospital in Los Angeles and so far all is well.

The babies born this week, range from 0.67 kilograms to 1.47 kilograms and all cried spontaneously after birth, which is a good sign.

Initially two were placed on ventilators, while a third needed oxygen but they are all are now reported to be breathing on their own and are expected to remain in hospital for at least two months.

The babies are expected to be kept in incubators for several weeks and are currently being fed breast milk by tubes - their mother at this stage, apparently plans to breast-feed all eight babies.

Dr. Alejandro Vasquez and a 46-strong medical team had prepared for the birth for weeks but only seven babies had been expected and it seems that baby number eight was something of a surprise.

The delivery of the septuplets had gone as planned and all seven were delivered within 4 minutes when baby number eight appeared a minute later.

The birth of octuplets to an the unnamed California woman was just the second such event in American history after a Nigerian-born woman gave birth to eight live babies in Texas in 1998 - of the eight, 7 survived and recently celebrated their 10th birthday.

The mother of the octuplets has requested anonymity and little is known about her - family members have respected this and declined to speak to the media.

It is not known whether the mother had taken fertility drugs which sometimes result in multiple births.

Experts say during treatment, several eggs are fertilised and mothers usually choose to reduce the number of fertile eggs in order to ensure the remaining babies have the optimum chance of good health.

They caution that the babies could face future health risks, including breathing problems and neurological damage and a decision to try to have all eight babies would not normally be recommended.

The mother was apparently placed under medical care in the 12th week of pregnancy and was admitted to hospital and placed on bed rest at 23 weeks - the babies were delivered nine weeks premature by caesarean section, after extensive preparation by the medical team at the hospital, which has an advanced neonatal unit and had previously delivered quintuplets.

Physicians carried out two trial runs ahead of the delivery and four delivery rooms were set aside for the births.

The only other recorded case of live octuplet births was in Mexico City in 1967 where all eight babies died within 14 hours.