I was very happy to learn Tuesday that the last of the Suleman octuplets is finally home  to be with his brothers and sisters. Jonah ― the last to be sent home ― was the smallest of the bunch, weighing just 1 pound 8 ounces when they were born nine weeks early.

Click here to see pictures of Jonah and his siblings.

But now, the real challenge begins. Let us not forget that these infants were premature and that this last baby stayed in the hospital for almost 12 weeks. There is a lot of data that has been published and analyzed looking at some of the hurdles that premature babies must overcome in their early years.

To me ― as a person who delivers babies for a living ― I also have three of my own ― I am aware of the significance of paying attention to the way kids grow and develop, and how important that attention is in preventing some of these children from failing to meet their full potential.

For parents of full-term infants, paying close attention to developmental milestones is sometimes an afterthought. But for parents of premature babies, keeping track of movement, visual, social and developmental milestones could make a world of difference in identifying problems and finding solutions to meet their needs.

Most premature babies meet their milestones and catch up by the age of 2. But depending on how early an infant is born, their development may lag anywhere from 6-8 weeks in development usually during the first year of life.

It’s important to use your child’s adjusted age when tracking his or her development. For example, if your baby is 21 weeks old, but was born five weeks early, his or her adjusted age is 16 weeks (or 4 months).

Now let’s take a look at some of the milestones the American Academy of Pediatrics says parents can look out for around 16 weeks…

Motor:
o Brings hands together, or to mouth
o Lifts head and pushes on arms when on tummy
o Reaches for objects
o Turns or makes crawling movement when on tummy

Language:
o Turns head to follow familiar voices
o Laughs and squeals
o Combines sounds more often (for example, “aaah-oooh”, “gaaa-gooo”)

Activities:
o Grasps more and reaches for objects
o Brings objects to mouth
o Increases activity when sees a toy

Social/Emotional:
o Is increasingly interactive and comfortable with parents and caregivers
o Shows interest in mirrors, smiles and is playful
o Is able to comfort himself

For more guidelines and milestones at different ages, click here.

Remember: Always watch for progress and do not be afraid to ask for help from doctors, teachers or other family members.

Again, I am pleased that all eight of the children have made it home safe ― I just hope that Nadya Suleman pays as much attention to their progress as she has to publicizing their births, because it should always be about the kids.

Stem cells are cells which haven’t yet differentiated and become specialized into organs or people. Stem cell research is a complex and controversial topic, too complex to analyze effectively in a blog entry, or even a thick textbook. But given all the hysteria, hype and distortion surrounding the issue, I wanted to make a few points for the sake of clarity.

*  President Obama’s order this week does not change legality — it is already legal to conduct research on embryos. It is still not legal to create embryonic stem cells for the purpose of research, nor should it be. What is involved here is conducting research on embryos that have been produced privately for the purpose of in vitro fertilization, but have not ended up being used. Previously the funding was mostly private, now there will be increases in federal funding. At a time when private research money is shrinking, this may help the research to continue.
*  At the same time, advances in treatments have come not in embryonic stem cells, but in adult stem cells that have been manipulated genetically to regain their earlier potential before they began to differentiate. Embryonic stem cells hold promise because they haven’t yet differentiated and may be manipulated to do so in therapeutic directions. But this potential hasn’t been realized in part because the body tends to reject these cells as foreign. In contrast, using a body’s own stem cells or umbilical cord blood circumvents the risk of rejection, since a body won’t reject its own cells.
*  The current debate reminds me of the waste in creating excess embryos for no real medical purpose in the first place. We need stricter regulations on in vitro fertilization, not only so that no more pathetic stories like Octomom occur, but also because life is precious and should not be initiated only to be wasted in this spirit of excess.  IVF for an otherwise childless couple can be a wonderful thing, but it must be well monitored and carefully regulated.
*  It is preferable for embryos to be used for research rather than discarded, even with limited potential to lead to cures, and only with the understanding that no embryos should be created for research purposes.

When you unwrap the real science from the politics and postering, there is less controversy, and less negative emotion.

Dr. Marc Siegel is an internist and associate professor of medicine at the NYU School of Medicine. He is a FOX News medical contributor and writes a health column for LA Times, where he examines TV and movies for medical accuracy. Dr. Siegel is the author of “False Alarm: The Truth About the Epidemic of Fear“ and “Bird Flu: Everything You Need to Know About the Next Pandemic.”  Read more at www.doctorsiegel.com

In practically everyone’s favorite original Star Trek episode (and later film), Ricardo Montalban plays the leader of a master race of genetically engineered superheroes from the late 20th century, who consider themselves superior to others in a brutal way that is reminiscent of the Nazis.

The Montalban character was the first person I thought of when I reported on the news today that Dr. Jeff Steinberg, a pioneer of In Vitro fertilization in the 1970s, is now running the LA Fertility Institutes where he is planning to allow prospective parents to choose their baby’s traits (they are already choosing gender).

I have many concerns about this trend, especially when I consider it in the wake of the massively irresponsible medical care offered to Octomom Nadye Suleman by Octodoc Dr. Michael Kamrava.  The American Society of Reproductive Medicine has enough on its hands trying to limit the number of embryos implanted to one or two, without having to consider how they are being genetically altered or chosen to please some narcissistic parent.

Has everyone forgotten in this mad rush for media attention that the real purpose in IVF is to offer the possibility of a child (a blessing) to otherwise childless parents?

Dr. Leon Kass, President of the President’s Council on Bioethics until 2005, was concerned about this very problem in a report he issued before stepping down. If you allow parent’s to choose the traits of their children, where do you draw the line?

The process is also bound to be quite expensive. IVF already costs more than $10,000 per IVF cycle. If you add one from column A, one from column B choices of traits, how many more billions is that going to cost our overburdened health care system.

I also look at making designer babies from the perspective of a doctor trying to make responsible decisions in order to help my patients. What happened to the Hippocratic Oath? How many arbitrary and willful choices about a child’s genetic makeup could lead to unexpected negative outcomes? We need more regulation of doctors in the IVF world so that this doesn’t happen.

The real purpose of Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis, as the procedure is called, is to identify genetic defects in embryos created through IVF before implanting them. This makes sense, and since more  embryos than can be used are always harvested, has been used since the 1980s to prevent unanticipated diseases like Cystic Fibrosis, Down Syndrome, Tay-Sachs disease, sickle cell anemia, and Huntington disease. The technique can also be used to help choose embryos that are more likely to survive a pregnancy.

But as genetic diagnostics improves, and even gene splicing to identify and treat diseases before they occur becomes an exciting option, a slippery slope is created. On the downside of this slope awaits Montalban’s group, ominously named The Botany Bay Colony.

Dr. Marc Siegel is an internist and associate professor of medicine at the NYU School of Medicine. He is a FOX News medical contributor and writes a health column for LA Times, where he examines TV and movies for medical accuracy. Dr. Siegel is the author of “False Alarm: The Truth About the Epidemic of Fear“ and “Bird Flu: Everything You Need to Know About the Next Pandemic.”  Read more at www.doctorsiegel.com

Do no harm. That’s one of the oaths doctors have to take and should always practice under – but as more facts come out about this woman in California who just gave birth to octuplets, I’m beginning to wonder whether that oath was forgotten.

I’m still not clear as to how this mother ended up with eight children, but what we do know, is that she had some sort of fertility treatments. This story leaves me with many questions.

First: Did she have a need for fertility treatments? Here’s someone that already had six children under the age of eight. When you advise a woman to undergo fertility treatments, you have to take her previous obstetrical history into consideration, and whether any treatments are going to put her life or the life of the potential newborn(s) in danger.

Second: What kinds of fertility treatments are available? Well, for the most part, you either have in vitro fertilization (IVF) or ovarian stimulation. If it was indeed IVF, I don’t know any physician in his or her right mind that would place eight embryos inside a woman’s womb in 2009 — especially knowing all the potential risk that an octuplet pregnancy can bring on. In many countries around the world, IVF implantation is limited to one or two embryos.

With hyperstimulation on the other hand, physicians are able to recognize a situation where significant stimulation of follicles has occurred, and most likely, they will decide not proceed with the completion of the cycle due to the potential dangers associated with large multiple births.

In either case, ending up with eight fetuses is not something that is medically indicated, but rather an accident —or better yet — lack of proper medical care.

Now I know the challenges that physicians and their staffs face when dealing with infertility issues in patients that deeply desire to have a child. But choosing the right technique, and psychologically evaluating the person that you’re about to treat, is part of that oath of doing no harm.

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 A little girl born almost 19 months ago after just 22 weeks gestation and weighing less than 10 ounces is well on her way to her terrible two’s, her mother told the Daily Mail.Amillia Sonja Taylor is the first known baby to survive after a gestation period of fewer than 23 weeks. She was just 9 1/2 inches long when she was born Oct. 24, 2006. Full-term births come after 37 to 40 weeks.

Amillia left Baptist Children’s Hospital in Miami with her parents on February 21, 2007, 11 days before her actual due date and weighing just 4 pounds. She was still on oxygen at the time and needed asthma medication for her fragile lungs, the report said.