The Cost of Raising Octuplets: Expensive Times 8

Octuplet Family Will See Outsized Bills from Birth to Adolescence and Beyond

By ALICE GOMSTYN and DAN CHILDS
Jan. 28, 2009

As the world marvels at the birth of octuplets in California, bean counters may be marveling at something else -- the sheer cost of bringing the babies into the world.

A California woman gave birth to octuplets on Jan. 27, 2009, a multiple birth record for the second time in history. That means eight times as much love, but will it also cost eight times as much money?

(Getty/ABC News)

The infants' delivery was performed by a team of 46 doctors, nurses and surgical assistants stationed in four delivery rooms at Kaiser Permanente Bellflower Medical Center in Bellflower, Calif., and it likely cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

"You can think of it as an eightfold increase on a singleton birth," said Steven M. Donn, director of the Division of Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine at the University of Michigan Health System. "By comparison, the mother's care will probably be a bargain."

Costs for the average delivery of a full-term pregnancy range from $9,000 to $25,000, depending on whether the baby is delivered by Caesarean section or vaginally. Eight times $25,000 is Read more....