Last of Octuplets Released from Calif. Hospital
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Nadya Suleman has all her babies home.
The last of the world's longest surviving set of octuplets was released from a hospital in suburban Los Angeles Monday night after spending more than two months in the neonatal intensive care unit.
Jonah, the smallest of the octuplets who were born nine weeks premature on Jan. 26, has gone home to join his brothers and sisters, a spokeswoman with Kaiser Permanente Bellflower Medical Center said. Jonah was the smallest of the octuplets at birth, weighing just 1 pound 8 ounces. The hospital says he is now 4 pounds, 10 ounces, is able to bottle feed and has demonstrated that he can gain weight and maintain his body temperature.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"He stayed a little longer because he needed to gain weight," hospital spokeswoman Socorro Serrano said.
Click to see photos of the octuplets.
The octuplets' birth was heralded as a medical miracle, but the public's fascination with Suleman quickly soured as details of her life emerged. The divorced and unemployed mother had six other children at home; she has said all 14 children were conceived through in vitro fertilization.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Media scrutiny grew and the first pair of infants to go home were greeted March 17 by a crush of reporters and photographers in Suleman's home in La Habra, about 25 miles east of Los Angeles. The remaining babies went home in secret, at Suleman's request.
A team of nannies, who were trained and evaluated by Kaiser Permanente nurses, are helping Suleman care for the children.
"Kaiser is comfortable with the level of care they're providing for the babies," Serrano said.