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Bloggers as well as mainstream news media have been closely following the story of Nadya Suleman, the mother who gave birth to octuplets last week. Following ethics questions about the doctors who gave her fertility treatments, people began to question why Suleman was looking for a larger family in the first place since she already had six kids at home. Even baby product manufacturers are staying at arm’s length and haven’t offered any of the donations or support that usually follows famous multiples. In social media, moms are getting nasty about their feelings towards Suleman- a reminder of the dynamic nature of the online parenting network.

Over at Momlogic, the criticisms of Suleman from guest bloggers and interviews have ranged “selfish” to “gross.” And things didn’t get any better when Suleman hired a publicist. I haven’t seen any mom bloggers move far past insinuating that the new mom might be completely bonkers or a shame to the feminist movement but fellow moms in message boards are going as far as to suggest that Suleman planned the pregnancy as a money-making idea or had a sick fascination with the Gosselin’s of “Jon and Kate Plus Eight”.

Polls on the subject are also en vogue. In response to the birth, Lil Sugar asked readers “Should women have babies when they can’t afford them?” And an anonymous CafeMom member posed the question, “Do you think a person who has multiple babies have the right to ask for donations?” In response to the CafeMom post, 67 replies showed the range of opinions but the majority of the moms had a cold view towards Suleman.

As with the Motrin Moms crisis a few months back, the reaction against Suleman shows that a social media community can amplify negative word-of-mouth just as easily as positive; this is especially true when dealing with any product or situation central to the community’s foundation. So tread lightly when approaching moms or any other tight-knit community online and make sure you actually presenting something of value instead of setting yourself up for a backlash.

Thanks to Dido (Iyad Tibi) for the cute baby picture used here.