Whittakers Designer Baby

[Paula71]

Not so much in the news as current affairs but...

Just watched this programme in tears. It has changed my mind about certain aspects of the whole designer baby subject as I don't think you could call their baby designer. The whole word designer indicates prestige and a certain snobbery, they just wanted a healthy baby that could help their little boy. I defy anyone who watched this programme not to side with them and I know it would break my heart if either of my ds twins had to go through that. I know I am so so very lucky to have fine healthy boys.

Does anyone know how the family are doing?

I thought the programme was very well done. My sis phoned me halfway though, she wasn't watching it and she is totally against "designer babies" I said to her that if another baby was the only way to save her DD (only child) she WOULDN'T do the same. She said "yes" if she wanted another baby, but she felt that they only had Jamie purely for selfish reasons.
I started watching it and thought I understood what they went though, as a parent, but by the end I was crying and Yes I would do the same, if I could save my child.

I'd put it the other way - I would think it unethical of the parents not to try and have another baby when its the only chance of saving their older boy.

I can't see how anybody could reasonably object to what they have done

Hear hear!! Handlemecarefully. I couldn't agree more. I wouln't hesitate to do the same. It would be a pretty heartless mum imo to NOT have another child, because she just didn't want anymore. That truly baffles me to be honest.

Didn't see programme but know of story through the news. I would do the same if it was the best way to save my child. And I don't really see this as a case of so called designer babies either - they just want a healthy baby surely.

my DH was'nt very impressed with the mum who whinged through her ivf injections in contrastto her very brave son who has needles every night!

That's mean. My friend had IVF and she went through hell.

I watched nearly in tears - what a brave little boy. I thought the family was lovely - I would definatley do the same if it meant saving dd life.

I have a friend whose dd1 has DBA, same as the Whitaker child, and she will probably go down the IVF route soon overseas(her dd2 wasn't a match for dd1, even though they harvested the umbilical blood). Incidentally I don't think we'd have to go down this route so much if routine harvesting of umbilical blood was carried out. I enquired about it - purely for altruistic reasons - and was told my hospital didn't have the facilities to do it, and you have to be 'counselled' before you can donate your cord blood - which is normally put in the bin...I ask you!
incidentally I saw that the other family, the Hashmis (whose son has thalassaemia) recently lost an IVF pregnancy (4th attempt) which was a match for their son.

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Suprisingly I agree with the comments you made, it was unfair on the little boy to build his hopes just incase something did go wrong.

oliveoil, i'm not being unfair, (i've had four ivf attempts with lots of needles, my dh has had a bone marrow transplant)she did whinge and moan a lot about needles, and the state of her house (why buy a wreck when so much else is going on)i do feel very sorry for them and i'm not sure what i'd do in that case but having a baby soley to save another member of the family makes me very uncomfortable. And what happen to their other embryos which were not a match? Do they just discard those?

Bundle, can I ask was BDA stands for? My sister was under the impression that its like thalassaemia, and because she had to go though a test for thalassaemia, she thinks she knows it all.

DBA is diamond blackfan anaemia (named after the people who discovered it) where you don't produce any red blood cells, or v few. steroids are used on infants which sometimes stimulate them back into production of rbc's, but this failed with my friend's child. she has regular transfusions and the needles in the tummy the whitaker boy was shown having are for chelation - to reduce the high levels of iron you get if you have regular transfusions. too much is v bad for you.

(btw it's very rare, only 30 or so cases in this country I think)

HA! I can laugh at my sis then! She annoys me!

And I am right in thinking that children with BFA die young? Sis thinks that they can live till about 40.

the hashmi child has thalassaemia, maybe she was getting them mixed up. I'm not sure about life expectancy but it's certainly v serious.

Didn't she miscarry??? I read that in the paper this morning.

I thought sis may have done. I would have another baby to save one of my own, I couldn't sit there and watch my child die because I was too selfish to do anything about it. Another baby would be hard work but it would be worth it.
And like everyone has said Jamie wasn't designed, he was picked because he was healthy,and there was always the chance that he could have DFA anyway. They went into it with their eyes wide open.

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Very moving story.And yes I would have done the same. Thought it was crazy that the laws here allowed them to conceive naturally and then terminate any non-matches. (Did i really hear that right) yet didn't allow tissue typing on a tiny embryo.

And she couldn't be that selfish as when they said about the embroys and how many to put back, her hubby said 3 and she could terminate one if they all took, and she refused. I believe that she wouldn't have been able to terminate any of the babies. She was willing to accept twins.

M2T - Where did you read she has miscarried?