Doctors Karen Maples, left with Harold Henry, right, and Mandhir Gupta, center, take questions at a... 
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Dr. Charles Sophy, medical director of Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services, cautioned that giving birth to octuplets would put eight times as much stress on a single mother and pose a daunting task in terms of rearing.
"It costs money to raise children -- to raise these kids is probably going to cost about 2-and-a-half million dollars, just to give them basics," he said. "That is not baseball lessons or piano lessons. That is food, clothing or getting to school every day -- that is a lot of money."
A mother of six on welfare would receive approximately $1,645 a month from the government, according to estimates by the Los Angeles County Department of Social Services. A mother of 14 would receive about $2,678 a month in support.
The Department of Children and Family Services would worry that, in a house of 14, there would be a lack of attention or that the children would be at risk of abuse or neglect.
While the hospital has not revealed if the woman received fertility treatments, Sophy said that it is possible to obtain fertility drugs without a traditional doctor's prescription.
"It should be a doctor who prescribes any kind of medication, but as we know, these days through the Internet, through the mail, through other countries, anything is accessible."
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