WHATEVER Ms Mandy Allwood's motives for going ahead with the full pregnancy of eight babies against medical advice, doctors who are experts in the field agree that she deserves sympathy for her loss.
Dr Robert Forman, clinical director of the London Gynaecological and Fertility Centre, said last night: "Ms Allwood will be psychologically completely devastated.
"It is like a bereavement. When someone loses a relative it takes a minimum of two years before they recover. She is going to be very affected for a long time."
He said Ms Allwood would be helped by bereavement counsellors, midwives experienced in what to do when women have stillbirths.
Dr Forman said the key lesson to emerge from the case was the importance of doctors and patients involved in fertility treatment working in partnership together.
The treatment Ms Allwood received allowed doctors to predict that a multiple birth was likely. She would then have been advised to abstain from sexual intercourse, or to use contraception. Both doctor and patient, therefore, had a shared responsibility.
Dr Forman said: "This case has brought up many issues about who should have access to fertility treatment, and whose responsibility it should be.
"I think the doctors have their share of responsibility but the patients also have a responsibility. If there's one lesson to be learned from this it's that both have to work in partnership." He thought the case might have had a side benefit in helping to educate the public about multiple births.
"People never think about the negative side of multiple pregnancy, said Dr Forman. "Twins can be a joyful occasion, but triplets and anything beyond triplets can be a source of real danger."
Prof Lord Robert Winston, who runs an assisted conception clinic at Hammersmith Hospital, London, said it was too soon to discuss the issues thrown up by the case.
He said: "This woman is going to be in a state of grief or shock, and there has already been a colossal intrusion into her privacy.
"A lot of lessons will be learned from this case, but I'm not sure this is quite the right time to go public on them."
Babies born inside 24 weeks of pregnancy stand almost no chance of staying alive. At 24 weeks there is a slim hope of survival, but the chances do not improve significantly until 26 weeks have elapsed.
Ms Allwood was in her 19th week of pregnancy.