Los Angeles, Jan. 30: The woman who gave birth to octuplets this week already has six young children and never expected that the fertility treatment she received would result in eight more babies, her mother has said.

The woman, who has not been publicly identified, had embryos implanted last year, and “they all happened to take”, Angela Suleman said, leading to the eight births on Monday. “I looked at those babies. They are so tiny and so beautiful.”

She acknowledged that raising 14 children was a daunting prospect.

“It’s going to be difficult,” Suleman added, noting that her daughter’s father was going back to Iraq, where neighbours said he worked as a contractor, to help support the expanded family.

The mother of the octuplets lives on a well-kept cul-de-sac in Whittier, where more-than-a-dozen reporters and camera crews descended yesterday.

Neighbours said she and her six children — ages 7, 6, 5, 3 and 2-year-old twins — live there with her mother. Her marital status is unknown. Family members did not answer the door, but when a reporter called the home asking for Suleman, she spoke briefly.

According to her account, when her daughter discovered that she was expecting multiple babies, doctors gave her the option of selectively reducing the number of embryos, but she declined.

“What do you suggest she should have done? She refused to have them killed,” Suleman said. “That is a very painful thing.”

The information about the family came amid growing questions about the medical ethics of the case and how the woman came to carry eight babies to term.

Although the successful births at the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Bellflower have received worldwide attention, they have also prompted disapproval from medical ethicists and fertility specialists, who argue that high-number multiple births endanger the mother and often lead to long-term health and development problems for the children.

Under the guidelines of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, doctors normally would not implant more than two embryos at a time in a woman under the age of 35. After that age, it is more difficult to become pregnant. The mother of the octuplets is believed to be 33, based on available public records.

Kaiser officials said the woman came to the centre already in her 12th week of pregnancy.

Dr Harold Henry, a member of the delivery team, said doctors counselled her regarding the options and risks. “Our goal is to provide the best possible care, no matter what the circumstances are,” he said.