‘Surge in DS pregnancies is matched by surge in terminations’
October 26th, 2009![Child with Down syndrome, photo from [UK] Guardian](http://www.patriciaebauer.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/2009.10.27_guardian-photo.jpg "Child with Down syndrome, photo from [UK] Guardian")
From the [UK] Times, [UK] Telegraph, Reuters, [UK] Daily Mail, [UK] Guardian:
A study in the current issue of the British Medical Journal says the number of reported Down syndrome pregnancies in England and Wales has increased more than 70 percent over the past twenty years as women postpone childbearing.
But the number of births of infants with the condition has dropped by one percent over the same time period because more than 90 percent of such pregnancies diagnosed prenatally were terminated, researchers found.
Lead researcher Joan Morris, professor of medical statistics at Queen Mary, University of London, said more research was needed to find out why about 30 per cent of older women decide not to be tested. “It is important to ascertain whether the decision is an informed one and, if not, to address the lack of information,” she said.
Frank Buckley, chief executive of Down Syndrome Education International, called the findings “a wake-up call to policy-makers to focus more effort on improving education, healthcare and adult support for the rapidly growing population of citizens who have Down syndrome.”
Related post: Article: Will babies with Down syndrome slowly disappear?
See also:
Women’s choices on Down syndrome screening must be informed ones — By Carol Boys, [UK] Times. Boys urges that families undergoing the screening process be given non-directive counseling and accurate, up-to-date information about Down syndrome.
Actually, having a child with Down syndrome is no big deal — By Simon Barnes, [UK] Times
Belinda Benton: I had healthy baby despite Down’s syndrome risk — [UK] Telegraph
‘Down’s is still stigmatized’ — BBC (video). Natasha and Eddie Batha, whose daughter has Down syndrome, say parents need up-to-date and accurate information upon diagnosis to counter the powerful public stigma against the condition. A partial transcript is here:
He said: “You’re led to believe that it’s the worst thing that could possibly ever happen to you.
“And then you realize it’s just another human being who happens to be a little bit different.“She just takes a bit more effort and she is a bit slower to pick up on things.”
His wife agreed that many people were misinformed about Down’s syndrome and she thinks this has contributed to the high abortion rate.
She said: “Because you have a test [during pregnancy] you think that it must be a terrible thing if it happened.
“There’s no qualifying information and I think that would be really useful to get that and it might affect a lot of people’s decision as to whether they could live with that.”
‘Most women’ end Down’s pregnancy — interview on BBC Radio 4 with Joan Morris, professor of medical statistics at Queen Mary university in London, who compiled the research, and Jane Fisher, chief executive of Antenatal Results and Choices (ARC).
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October 28th, 2009 at 9:04 am
The researcher is concerned that the decision NOT to have testing is an informed one, but indicates no concerns about the decision to terminate being an informed one. I don’t know why this attitude continues to stun me. I agree with the earlier comment that this issue is already gone, and I’m so saddened.
October 27th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
Prof. Morris was interviewed on BBC News this morning and was (obnoxiously) being systematically negative about Down Syndrome – what a surprise. Some parents did – bless ‘em – e-mail the presenters pointing out the positive potential of people with Down’s. There was a little girl with DS in the studio with her parents. The kid was adorable and the presenters did point how positive her parents were and Prof. Morris babbled on about “there is a wide spectrum of disability with Down’s and her parents are happy BUT” then bla-bla.
Prof. Morris also obnoxiously kept referring to terminating a “Down Syndrome pregnancy” (as she termed it) as “a woman’s decision”, “a woman’s pregnancy”, “a woman’s ability to raise a child with disabilities”, etc. From listening to her, I would have deducted that “Down Syndrome pregnancies” are the result of women becoming pregnant without having to resort to contact with the male of the species (aka fathers).
What an insufferably arrogant woman and another example of why doctors are increasingly the worst enemies people with Down Syndrome can have.
October 27th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
Tragically, we are way beyond the point of no return on this issue and I doubt that any amount of education can bring us back.
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter to the fetus if the decision is informed or uninformed — it still ends up dead!
If you aren’t willing to accept anything less than the “perfect” baby, you’re really not fit for parenthood.
For those who have chosen to terminate their own child based on the chance that he/she would have Down syndrome — you don’t know what you’re missing.
October 27th, 2009 at 9:47 am
“It is important to ascertain whether the decision is an informed one and, if not, to address the lack of information,”
Most women who get the diagnosis of a child with DS in utero, are married and older parents. This is a child that they planned or at the very least warmly welcomed. It is not possible to want a child, and then get a DS diagnosis, and call it an “informed” decision. No mother, who wants a child, would willingly take the child’s life, unless they are completely uninformed. Indeed, it is a vicious circle.
What came first, the lack of respect because of the diagnosis of Down syndrome, or is the dignity for their lives decreasing, since a bleak picture is painted in the womb. A vicious circle indeed.
We need to be honest, and stop thinking that this abortion rate has not affected our children who are actually born. And all of the deaths due to this ignorance, is just the saddest statistic of all time.