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

Lost in the media storm surrounding Nadya Suleman, the mother of new octuplets born through in vitro fertilization, is the father of those babies.

Incidentally, the octuplets’ father is also the father of Suleman’s six other children, who were also conceived via in vitro fertilization. 

According to Suleman’s mother, Angela, the octuplets’ father, is one of her daughter’s “admirers.”

Reportedly, the name David Solomon appears on four of the first six kids’ birth certificates. Earlier this week, the Associated Press reported that the octuplets last names would be Solomon. But, no one knows for sure if David Solomon is actually the name of the hopefully-not-so-proud father.

Whomever donated the sperm that resulted in Suleman giving birth to a total of 14 children likely feels he bears no responsibility for the chaos these children will experience in life.  After all, once he provided his sperm to doctors, they were the ones who presumed Suleman to be a competent person and used that sperm to fertilize her eggs.  They acceded to her wishes to implant the resulting embryos in her uterus.  They tended to her during the pregnancy and delivered the children into the world. 

What possible moral failing could be assigned to a man who merely provided the genetic material for a sterile laboratory procedure sanctioned by the law of our land, a procedure that has helped bring millions of beloved children into the arms of good and decent parents?

I believe the octuplets’ father does bear a moral burden for providing the sperm used in this birthing calamity.  The 14 children fathered by Suleman’s sperm donor were born to an unemployed mother with psychological problems and no apparent insight into the consequences of her actions.  But they are also the offspring of someone she apparently knows, and that person apparently has even less concern for the human lives he helped create. 

Imagine having a self-centered mother who is using you and your 13 siblings to feel less lonely (because she’s angry she was an only child herself) and having been fathered by someone who has no particular interest in how or why you were created or what happens to you.  If that sounds like a prescription for low self-esteem, not to mention potential depression or drug addiction or an anxiety disorder, it is.

The Suleman case exposes gnawing ethical questions that are not asked frequently enough about the whole process of sperm and egg donation.

At what ethical cost does a society decide to sever every meaningful connection between millions of human beings and their offspring?  When the medical system is shown to be capable of the kind of reprehensible, misdirected creative impulse evident in the Suleman case, doesn’t it begin to support the notion that donors of sperm and eggs have some responsibility to make sure they aren’t helping to create chaos and suffering?  Must asexual reproduction be, by its very nature, amoral reproduction?

I say no.  I hold the sperm donor in the Suleman case just as responsible as she is for the tears to be shed by her children. He had to participate as an actor in this strange drama for it to go so horribly awry.  It was his sperm.  His.  Part of him.  If that means nothing to us as a culture anymore, then we may indeed be losing ourselves in our science.

Discuss this case on Dr. Manny’s Facebook wall.

Dr. Keith Ablow is a psychiatry correspondent for FOX News Channel and a New York Times bestselling author. His newest book, “Living the Truth: Transform Your Life through the Power of Insight and Honesty” has launched a new self-help movement. Check out Dr. Ablow’s website at livingthetruth.com or e-mail him at info@keithablow.com.

Nadya Suleman, who recently gave birth to octuplets in California with the help of fertility treatments, supposedly loves children.  That’s what her own mother, Angela, says, according to the “New York Post.”

The Post also quotes Suleman’s friend, Allison Frickert, as saying, “Her whole life, she couldn’t wait to be a mom.  That was her No. 1 goal.”

Suleman, 33, already had six children, which were conceived with the help of fertility treatment.  So now she has 14 children and reportedly an undergraduate degree in child and adolescent development and is pursuing a master’s degree in counseling. 

Nadya, here’s a look inside the mind of a single woman with six children, living in her parents’ 1,550 square-foot bungalow, who decides to have eight more children.  Since you aren’t going to class anymore, feel free to listen.

This isn’t about loving children.  This is about being completely and utterly lost in your own psychological drama that has absolutely nothing to do with truly nurturing the human beings you are creating.  These children, each of whom I pray overcomes the odds and becomes competent and empathetic human beings, are the expression of your own unresolved psychological troubles.  I wouldn’t presume to make a formal diagnosis, but they may be the product of obsessive-compulsive thinking—an irrational idea that “one more daughter will make me complete” or something as mundane as the idea that “the number six isn’t lucky for me.”  Even more likely, they are a distraction from core, unresolved emotional issues you are hell-bent on not addressing.  With enough children and enough chaos, after all, you won’t have to wonder if you yourself were well-enough-loved or well-enough-nurtured as a child or whether you developed into the person you had hoped to become. 

Using 14 kids to avoid your own thoughts and feelings isn’t much different for you than using alcohol or heroin to bury your emotions.  The big difference is for the fourteen kids who will grow up trying to make sense out of the absurd circumstances into which they were born—not as products of a loving relationship, but as products of you trying to use motherhood as a drug to distance yourself from your own internal suffering.

Now, your suffering has been multiplied.  Your suffering has eight new names to add to the six that already existed.  Your pain now has fourteen faces.  And all this, rather than looking at your own face in the mirror, into your own eyes and your own heart to find out what was missing, what had been injured, what needed real understanding and real repair, not real reproducing.

How could your fertility doctors have missed the barren psychological landscape from which they were extracting new human beings?  How could medical ethics not have caught up with medical technology, to the extent that a single mother can decide to have fourteen children with the help of a small army of health care personnel?  Will the doctors line up to pay for the clothing and childcare and education the children will need?  Will they volunteer their time to play with the kids and give them the quiet time and undivided attention that will allow them to feel secure expressing their thoughts and feelings?  Will they be there at bedtime to read them each their favorite stories?  No. 

This delivery of octuplets isn’t about the octuplets at all.  It isn’t about loving or mothering or doctoring.  It’s about doing what each person in this strange drama wanted to do—for herself or himself.  It’s about not thinking and not feeling, and fertilizing fourteen young lives with the unpaid debt of that emotional blindness.

Dr. Keith Ablow is a psychiatry correspondent for FOX News Channel and a New York Times bestselling author. His newest book, “Living the Truth: Transform Your Life through the Power of Insight and Honesty” has launched a new self-help movement. Check out Dr. Ablow’s website at livingthetruth.com or e-mail him at info@keithablow.com.