By Mail Foreign Service
Last updated at 4:01 PM on 10th February 2009

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The single mother who used a fertility doctor to give birth to octuplets has three disabled children who she receives benefits for, it was revealed today.

Nadya Suleman, 33, has previously insisted that she will not be claiming benefits, however her publicist has since confirmed that she already receives food stamps and child disability payments to help feed and care for her six other children.

Disability payments: Nadya Suleman, pictured yesterday during an appearance on NBC's Today show, has three disabled children who she receives benefits for

'In her view these are just payments made for people with legitimate needs and are not, in her view, welfare,' said publicist Mike Furtney.

'She just believes that there are programs for people with needs and she and her children qualify for some of them.'

 

• Pictured: The eight little wonders of the maternity ward

The mother of 14 would not disclose the nature of the disabilities, or the type or sum of the payments.

The news came as it was revealed that all of Suleman's children were conceived with help from the same fertility doctor - Dr. Michael Kamrava.

Controversy: Dr Michael Kamrava, 57, leaves his Beverly Hills, California office yesterday after he was outed as the doctor who gave the octuplets' mother IVF treatment

This image made from a 2006 video provided by a local television station shows Dr Kamrava performing an ultrasound on Nadya Suleman during an earlier pregnancy

Over the past two weeks, his identity has been a source of great mystery because of questions over the ethics of implanting numerous embryos in a woman who already had six children.

However Kamrava's name finally emerged yesterday as a result of an interview aired Monday on NBC with Nadya Suleman, who gave birth to eight babies on January 26.

Kamrava, 57, would not comment on the issue, but told reporters outside his clinic on Rodeo Drive that he had granted an interview to one of the television networks. When asked to provide more detail, he said, 'Watch the news.'

Without identifying the doctor, the Medical Board of California said last week it was looking into the Suleman case to see if there was a 'violation of the standard of care.'

The medical board said it has not taken any disciplinary action against Kamrava in the past.

 

Octuplet number one: Noah, male, 2lb 11oz

In an interview with NBC, Suleman did not identify her doctor by name, but said that she went to the West Coast IVF Clinic in Beverly Hills - of which Kamrava is director - and that all 14 of her children were conceived with help from the same doctor.

In 2006, Los Angeles TV station KTLA ran a story on infertility that showed Kamrava treating Suleman and discussing embryo implantation.

Kamrava graduated from the University of Illinois and went to medical school at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, according to state records and his Web site.

Some fertility specialists said Kamrava is a controversial figure in the field.

'He's tried some novel techniques and some of those methods have been controversial,' said Dr. John Jain, founder of Santa Monica Fertility Specialists.

Jain criticised the decision to implant so many embryos, saying: 'I do think that this doctor really stepped outside the guidelines in a very extreme manner, and as such, put both the mother and children at extra high risk of disability and even death."

Dr. Jeffrey Steinberg, a professional acquaintance of Kamrava's, said he worked to develop an embryo transfer device that allows doctors to implant an embryo - or sometimes sperm with an unfertilised egg - directly into the uterine lining.

 

 

"Usually we inject the embryos into the uterus and they float around and attach themselves," Steinberg said. However, Steinberg said there was no evidence the method improved success rates for pregnancy.

It was not immediately known if the technique was used on Suleman.

Suleman said she had six embryos implanted for each of her pregnancies. The octuplets were a surprise result of her last set of six embryos, she said, explaining she had expected twins at most. Two of the embryos evidently divided in the womb.

Medical ethicists have criticised the implanting of so many embryos. National guidelines put the norm at two to three embryos for a woman of Suleman's age, except in extraordinary circumstances.

Kamrava's clinic performed 20 IVF procedures on women under 35 in 2006, according to the most recent national report compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Of those 20 procedures, four resulted in pregnancies and two in births. One woman delivered twins.

 

 

The average number of embryos he transferred per procedure for women under 35 was 3.5, the report said.

Fertility doctors often implant more than one embryo to increase the chances that one will take hold.

An in-vitro procedure typically costs between $8,000 and $15,000. Asked on NBC how she was able to afford the treatments, Suleman said she had saved money and used some of the more than $165,000 in disability payments she received after being injured in a 1999 riot at a state mental hospital where she worked.

Dr. Richard Paulson, who heads the fertility program at the University of Southern California, cautioned against rushing to judgment about the fertility treatment in this case because questions remain about the quality of Suleman's eggs and whether there were any extraordinary circumstances that would lead Kamrava to transfer so many embryos.

As for the technique Kamrava pioneered, 'those of us who are the scientists in the field do not feel this is a significant improvement,' Paulson said.

He said some doctors advertise that technique as 'a way of making patients feel that they are trying something new.'

 

Suleman told NBC's Today show she was 'fixated' on having children. She insisted said her doctor 'did nothing wrong' and had warned her of possible complications to the pregnancy and risks to the development of the babies.

The octuplets were born nine weeks prematurely but appear relatively healthy. Their names have a Biblical theme: Noah, Jonah, Jeremiah, Josiah, Isaiah, Maliyah, Makai and Nariyah. All share the middle name Angel and the last name Solomon.

On Sunday, Suleman's mother, Angela Suleman, seemed to contradict her daughter's account, telling a Web site the fertility specialist who helped her daughter give birth to the octuplets was not the one who aided in the birth of her first six children.

The mother of 14, pictured with two of her other children in 2006, is thought to have used the same fertility doctor to help conceive all of her children

In an interview with celebrity news Web site RadarOnline.com, Angela Suleman said she and Nadya's father pleaded with her first fertility doctor not to treat their daughter again. She said her daughter went to another doctor.

'I'm really angry about that,' Angela Suleman said of the doctor's decision to perform the procedure.

'She already has six beautiful children. Why would she do this? I'm struggling to look after her six.

'We had to put in bunk beds, feed them in shifts and there's children's clothing piled all over the house.'

Angela Suleman said Nadya's boyfriend was the biological father of all 14 children, but that she refused to marry him.

'He was in love with her and wanted to marry her,' she said. 'But Nadya wanted to have children on her own.'

 

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Here's what readers have had to say so far. Why not add your thoughts below?

She could "save money" for this ridiculous procedure but cannot buy food for her children and relies on food stamps?
The government agency responsible for handing out money to the needy should take a better look at who they are handing money and benefits out to!
Someone with 8 to 15 thousand in savings should be told to use those savings towards the care and upkeep of her children!!
Also....
Out of the 6 children she had, 3 are disabled? I have to wonder if this "new procedure" the doctor used has anything to do with that. Just wondering. And, how many of the 8 she just gave birth to are going to end up with long term health issues? Premature infants are at a higher risk of life long disablities and multiply that by 8?`