Such a sad story in the news - baby mistakenly terminated.

[Christmascack]

www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/royal-womens-hospital-investigates-accidental-termination-of-wrong-twin-in-surgery-error/story-e6frg6nf-1226204303788

Sometimes you can't win, to be fair.
You put too little info, people moan, you put too much, people moan.

and that is why people are surprised that terminations happen late in pregnancy. Because it is a hidden subject.

I wanted to mention the termination of the baby in the title so that people could choose not to read this thread, I thought an intriguing title might get people to read about something quite upsetting when perhaps they would rather not.

I just picture these babies as being babies at 32 weeks, they could have possibly survived if they had been born at 32 weeks. I just don't think that scans are that reliable.

So so sad.

There is nothing wrong with the title - it is telling the facts and acts as a warning to people not to open the thread if they don't want to.

utterly repellant.

Who are we to say that the life of a disabled baby is so much less worth living that the disabled baby can be terminated up to birth (and yes, this is the case) yet the non disabled baby cannot?

The article states that the condition may have been life-threatening not that the condition was incompatible with life. There is a difference.

I can see why a parent wouldn't want to watch their child going through years of painful surgeries and invasive treatments. I can see why a parent wouldn't want to watch their child die. It doesn't make it right to kill the child at the point where they would have been viable and where, if there were no health conditions, it would be illegal to do so though.

fair enough

I can't imagine this...at all

What would have then happened to the terminated twin? Would he have been removed via Caesarian when other twin was born?

Poor boys. Also a bit that all the focus is on the 'wrong' baby being terminated and that's what is tragic.

I dunno, for me it was always that I couldn't terminate on any disability except anencephaly or Potter's syndrome (or amniotic band syndrome, but those don't usually go to term) which are definitely incompatible with life because it's not for me to decide if a disabled person's life is worth living anymore than it's for me to decide if a person's life is worth living at all. That's the individual's decision to make if they make it to adulthood.

IYKWIM (sounds convoluted, I know).

x-posted with wannabe.

I totally agree.

Wannabe.... I agree with that. I first felt sick reading this, now I feel bloody angry!

DD2 was born at 32 weeks and the whole might of the NHS swung into action to make sure she was okay and keep her alive.

Gordon Browns little girl who didnt make it was a 32 weeker.

There are no guarantees any child will be born hale and hearty and healthy at any gestation.

I dont think it matter what your view on terminiation is, I am sure most of us find this morally repugnant, while at the same time having the deepest sympathy for those involved, we can only imagine the guilt they will all carry for the rest of their lives.

Id like to think the guilt is not greater at the loss of the "healthy" twin than the one with the disability, but I fear I might be wrong.

32 weeks....

Awful and shocking. Poor parents to have made that choice and then be left with no babies at all.
I strongly believe in a womans right to choose but really struggle with this...babies are born alive and do well at 32 weeks.....am not sure what the circumstances must of been for a medical professional to advise such a late termination and for an Ethics committee to agree to it.
Sometimes nature should take its course

I don;t understand this story at all. Aborting one of a pregnancy of two at any stage surely is going to be very risky for the other foetus - especially at as late a stage as this. I don't understand why the doctors recommended it, what was going on. I think there must be more to this, why it was even considered in the first place.

Am pregnant and I admit, quite hormonally emotional...but the thought of an injection designed to kill an unborn child makes me feel physically sick.

God knows how awful the alternative must have been for the parents to choose that option.

And I agree, Eminence. We're waiting on tenterhooks for our 20 wk scan, as a thicker than normal nuchal fold at 13 wks indicates there may be a heart problem. (Downs risk very low according to bloods.) The next 3 weeks are going to drag and tbh I had second thoughts about the screening beforehand because bar any conditions incompatible with life we wouldn't abort anyway. Still a bit petrified though.

I think people are naive tbh.

There have been stories in the press over here where women have been offered late terminations for conditions such as club foot.

There was a story a few years back of a woman in Kent who was offered a termination for downs at 35 weeks.

Did anyone see the woman on This Morning last week who was essentially rail-roaded into a termination because her baby had downs - no chance to make a decision - she was told about the result and given the tablet to terminate on the same day while being told that all women terminate and therefore she should.

I'm afraid that when it comes to disability the medical profession do tend to er more on the side of termination rather than proceeding with the pregnancy.

I think it's simple really - if it's not legal to terminate a healthy baby at that age then it shouldn't be legal to terminate a disabled one.

That baby could have been born at 32 weeks and been viable. How many people would then say it was ok to kill it because the parents couldn't possibly watch it go through invasive treatments for the next x years?

Absolutely devastating. The news report said the second twin would have had to undergo years of surgery if he survived at all, so it sounds as though there was a small chance for this baby. I think is there was any chance I would have gone ahead with the birth. I could understand slight if he was threatening the survival of the other twin earlier in the pregnancy or if the baby had a fatal disorder and wouldn't survive beyond the birth but I don't understand this. My heart goes out to the mother.

Not sure why I have 'slight' there, spell check making up it's own words again!

I do find it odd, all the emphasis is on Down's Syndrome in much prenatal screening and you get a lot of people sighing, 'Oh, thankfully the baby doesn't have Downs' as if that's the worst thing that can happen when there are so many disabilities that cannot be detected in utero or occur during birth and many of them can be more debilitating than Down's Syndrome.

I was railroaded at nuchal scan, which was the type of test offered at 12-13 weeks by my trust. Told that if results were high I'd be referred for amnio. Told midwife I wasn't having any amnio due to miscarriage risk and she accused me of wasting their time.

People have this idea that you must be guaranteed a healthy child with no disabilities or something is 'wrong' when life doesn't work that way. Having children is a leap of faith, if you want guarantees it's probably best you think long and hard before having kids at all.

My son was born at 32 weeks..3lb 8 he weighed..he is almost 10 now :)
HOWEVER! He did not look like a healthly baby, he looked almost alien like, so small, skinny and see through skin, he had bruised eyes and his eyeballs were red. 32 week old babies do not look like healthly new borns.
He has some disabilities which may have been why he was born so early, a medical person (he sees ALOT of them) said it may have been my body trying to abort him as he wasn't quite 'right'.
Poor woman in the news report though, what an awful decision for her to make and then this happens

oh I agree eminencegrise.

There are of course other conditions covered by amnio, but these are generally not mentioned since Downs seems to be the overwhelming one to fear.

All this antenatal testing creates such a false sense of security that people genuinely believe that if the amnio comes back clear they are guaranteed a healthy baby. When actually many of the most severe conditions (severe autism, cerebral palsy) cannot be tested for and often (in the case of autism) don't even manifest for a couple of years after the birth.

As another example, my mental health issues, which did not present until well into adulthood, have compromised my quality of life more so than my husband's learning disabilities (which were not able to be detected prenatally, not that his mother would have tested).

Wow, There are some very strong feelings on this thread.

It is a terrible story, an utterly tragic one, and yes, it's something that those poor parents will have to live with for the rest of their lives. I know, i've been in a very similar situation.

Having twins is such an amazing thing, don't get me wrong, any baby is special, but having twins - or more - well, it's astounding. When you're told though, that one of your babies is very very sick and will probably die at birth, if he hasn't already, then it just throws your whole world upside down.

My DS1 was diagnosed at 14 weeks gestation with something called Posterior Uretheral Valves. We were given at that point, three options. We could choose to do nothing at all, and pray for a miracle, we could put our sick baby to sleep - injecting him with a salt solution and stopping his heart, or we could intervene and empty his baldder for him every five days. To empty his bladder would seem the obvious option, yes? No. It meant there was a 75% risk of total miscarraige to both babies, every single time a needle was inserted into him. Given then that i would have had to have had that done at least 40 -50 times for the rest of my pregnancy, we felt it was far too much of a risk to take, especially for our healthy baby. So we chose to do nothing, and hope for a miracle. We got one. DS was born alive and lived for just under two hours.

But yes, there were many many times, during that pregnancy and since where i've wondered did i do the right thing? Would it have been better for him, and ultimately less painful for us, if we'd put him to sleep? We were asked every week if we would consider it, and hell, when someone keeps chipping away at you, it wears you down yunno?

Please don't judge this poor mother too harshly. You can't begin to imagine what she's going through now and what she's got to live with in the future. Perhaps she was making the best decision she could based on the information she had at the time? We'll never know what she has to live with.