Down's Syndrome

[daffy654]

I have just read a report about the increase in 'Down's Syndrome pregnancies' on the BBC website and am interested in what the female ABers would do if they were pregnant and were told the unborn child had Down's Syndrome.
There has been a decrease in the amount of babies born with Down's Syndrome due to more parents/mothers deciding to terminate the pregnancy.
I would not have aborted but that is just my personal choice.
What would you do in this situation?


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8327228.stm

[Seafarer1966]

To abort or not is entirely the carrying mothers choice and no religion or government has the right to dictate otherwise. I thank my lucky stars I had two healthy kids but things could have been so different. The increase in Downs births is because of older women having kids. Fair enough they put off having families whilst they develop their careers and earn decent money to buy a nice house etc. but the human race isn\'t designed for new mums at 40. My gran had had three kids by the time she was 20.

[nohorn]

I would like to mention an observation.......I have watched several families that have one DS, I felt sorry for the siblings. The older ones ended up as "caretakers" a great deal of the time, robbing them of their childhood as they spent time correcting them, looking out for them, etc. It clearly was a burden at times for them.

[millerxxx]

my pal has a ds kid
36 yrs old
hard to handle
does not do when told
hoovers several times a day
changing bed clothes every dat etc etc

[zzxxee]

until you are truly faced personally with a situation like that i think its impossible to say i would or would not opt for a termination

[Pigletion]

There was an interesting point made yesterday by a woman, who has a child with DS, on BBC Breakfast who said that if you take the test it is practically assumed you are going to end the prgnancy if the results predict a disabled child. She said people assume having (or knowing you're going to have) a child with DS or other problem is the worse thing in the world. Whereas really she would have liked to have been given genuine information about what it is like (maybe from other parents), what the quality of life of the child would be, support available etc. rather than everyone just assuming she was going to end her pregnancy.

Her experience could have just been part of the lottery that is the NHS, but as you have to make a hard decision I naturally assumed you were given information both ways rather than just support for terminating.

Thought she made an interesting point...

[daffy654]

Thanks for your answers and input everyone,it has been interesting to read your opinions.

[Ankou]

when mrs kous was told she should have the test, we were given lots if information about how the test works and what the results would tell us. we were also asked if we had considered or had a clear idea of what our position would be if the test showed positive for ds or edwards.

the test came beack ok, but i am pretty certain that if it hadn't that we would have been counselled and guided on what ds means and offered various services or groups to understand it better before aking a decison.

i suppose that if you decided not to have the test, then your intentions are clear, if you decide to have the test then perhaps your intentions are a little greyer.