In the world of animal husbandry, livestock breeders make decisions based on achieving the best outcomes possible.

Multiple births in cattle are discouraged because of low birth weights and the possibility that female calves can be born sterile if they are sharing uterine space with a male twin. Selective breeding can help ensure the best traits can be reproduced, but there's only so much manipulation that Mother Nature will tolerate.

It makes me wonder why some physicians — albeit a very few — in the human reproductive medicine field don't apply this same sensibility to women seeking in-vitro fertilization.

There are, apparently, no rules or laws about in-vitro fertilization. There's a lot of information about "best practice," which is what the most reputable and ethical fertility specialists employ. They have firm limits on the number of embryos they implant in women depending upon their age, health and other factors. Six embryos would be considered excessive.

That's what happened in the case of Nadya Suleman, who gave birth to octuplets recently. She didn't expect to have more than twins in her latest pregnancy, she said, although six embryos were implanted.

In her previous pregnancies — she's had four single births and a set of twins — six embryos were implanted in each procedure, too. This time, though, the pregnancy resulted in octuplets.

My initial reaction was not a positive one. Such pregnancies are not in the best interest of moms or children. To learn that Suleman already had six children and no visible means of support aside from help from her parents, the situation seemed outrageous to me.

My attitude is now one of concern. As I watch the "Today" show interviews of Suleman, it is almost as though she does not grasp the enormity of the challenges ahead. Her mother, meanwhile, seems at the end of her rope tending to Suleman's six older children.

Suleman said she believes that volunteers and family will step up to help her. She does not intend to go on welfare nor did she do this to make money. She admits that she was "fixated" on having children.

I can't say I was "fixated" on having children, but I very much wanted to be a mother. Bringing home one healthy, full-term child at a time to a married household with two incomes was sufficient joy and chaos to me and my husband. On my worst days, when I was sleep-deprived and feeling insecure as a first-time mom, I fully expected a Division of Child and Family Service caseworker to drop by and say, "Thank you, ma'am, we'll take it from here," as he or she whisked off my newborn.