Having an amnio test ruined my life

[thanka2]

Came across this article today. I thought that it was sobering as Hong Kong has the highest abortion rate in the developed world (about 29% of all pregnancies here end in abortion) and who knows how many of those pregnancies are terminated because the children have Down's Syndrome--also considering that more and more women are having children later and later in life which can increase the chances of conceiving a child with Down's Syndrome.


Having an amnio test ruined my life

 

[nicolejoy]

I have many many thoughts on that article. Here are some in point form:

- having the amnio didn't ruin her life, her choice to have an abortion when she didn't really want one did

- it is incredibly wrong for doctors to "bully" anyone into having an abortion. When someone is faced with a poor prenatal diagnosis, they need to know all their options and then for them to make up their own mind. I also think that doctors do not "support" parents who choose to keep their babies as well as they should. In offering their options, "keeping them" should be presented as a reasonable choice which has many pros as well

- I honestly think that women should think about these issues BEFORE they happen so that they can make better decisions if/when they ever need to face them.


I say all the above as someone who was faced with a poor prenatal diagnosis and was offered termination as an option. Thankfully, I HAD thought about "what would I do if..." before I was ever in that situation and termination was not an option for me. Thankfully also, I was blessed with doctors who accepted that and never tried to dissuade me from keeping my child. I am thankful for the prenatal testing that we had - and while it definitely added to the stress of the pregnancy, it prepared me for life with my daughter, including four months of NICU when she was first born. Prenatal testing is not the "bad guy" of this story. The "blame" should be on the medical staff who pressured her, and also on her and her husband for not standing up for what they wanted.

And let me say as well, life with a child with a disability isn't awful and horrible - my daughter is such a joy and a blessing to us. Yes, we have a lot more doctors appointments and therapy etc - but she's just like any other kid really. I wish that doctors would tell that to people with poor prenatal diagnoses, even maybe let them speak to families with children with that disability... there should be much more support for women in such difficult times. I know when I was pregnant, I looked for such a group in Hong Kong but was told that none existed. From what I've heard, though, other countries do offer better support in those situations...

 

[carang]

nicolejoy, i agree completely with everything you wrote.

 

[howardcoombs]

This being a Daily Mail article, I had my kilo of salt with me while I read it. I've now read it multiple times and I dont believe that she was bullied and even stranger, they were not brainwashed in the space of an hour or 2. Nice embellishments to get people riled up, but keep in mind that this is Daily Mail.

She was given some blunt facts about Downs and the amount of money, effort as well as emotional strain such a child would put on a family. She (with the help of Hubby) made the decision to terminate and took the pill. Thats where the blame stops.

We also had amnio for our 3 pregnancies and went into the procedure with open eyes and open ears. Did our research ahead of time and discussed what we would do given various scenarios. We listened to the doctors and made up our own mind in the end..

This is just another story in the pattern of people not wanting to take responsibility for their own actions; to which Daily Mail is only too happy to publicise.

 

[charade]

Second (third?) nicolejoy on her points. Also, in HK, the public system is offering down's screening for free (last year when i was pregnant it wasn't the case) for all women. The nurse at my local MCH took great trouble to hunt down an info sheet in English for me. The sheet listed briefly the options should the results indicate high risk for Downs, including keeping the baby (I'm not sure but I think there was a support group/counselling number listed there). At one of my antenatal appointments, I watched a video on the testing (it was just running in the waiting room) and there was definitely the option of keeping the baby and support. I may be mistaken but the keeping the baby option was presented before the termination option in that video (not too sure, but definitely both were).

 

[nicolejoy]

I have to add - in my pregnancy, I was actually SURPRISED that termination wasn't presented more "strongly" as an option. I mentioned to my first doctor (Patrick Chan) that I wouldn't consider termination, no matter what the problem was. Then when he referred me to the prenatal diagnostician (Cora Ngai), he mentioned in his referral letter that I wouldn't consider termination, and Dr Ngai mentioned it, I said no, and that was that. After that, I was referred to the public hospital and likewise - they mentioned it, I said no, no more said at all. IF I'd changed my mind, I would have had to actively ask someone as it never was more than just a mention.

I also have to say that I agree with HC - as I read the article, I thought (maybe cynically) that it sounded like she was undecided, then "accepted" the termination, then after the fact felt a lot of guilt and regret and then wanted someone else to blame rather than accepting that she'd made the decision to terminate... However, I don't know - I wasn't there - but I am a little skeptical that both she and her husband had firmly decided against termination and then had no choice in the matter. If the doctors had've pushed termination with me and my husband, we would have walked out, filed a complaint, even yelled at someone - but there's absolutely NO way at all that I would have swallowed that pill.

 

[miran]

Absolutely agree with nicolejoy

 

[rebekah]

Did anyone else see the part about her being a GP surgery manager? I'm very sorry that she regrets her choice, but she was not your typical uninformed consumer. Anyone who works in the medical field long enough to manage a practice has a pretty good idea how to talk with doctors and knows when they are bullying. I call BS.

 

[erina320]

Are ammnio's common practice in HK? They don't do them unless deamed absolutley necessary in the states due to the risk of infection.

On a side note... totally agree with nicolejoy. The possibility of having a child with special needs is something both my husband and I discussed before even getting pregnant. It's so sad to me that a person would terminate a pregnancy just because the child has a disability. I feel so strongly about this that my husband and I have even discussed adopting a special needs child in the future.

 

[charade]

Here I think the practice is to do an OSCAR test and then if the result show up a higher risk of Down's, an amnio is suggested. Till last year, the public system only offered free OSCAR tests for women over 35 but this year it's free for all pregnant women registered in the system.