No foetal pain before 24 weeks so OK to abort....?

[StableButDeluded]

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/10403496.stm

I'm a bit about this. Just because they supposedly can't feel pain still doesn't necessarily make it OK. It just doesn't sit right with me that doctors can be aborting a baby of 24 weeks in one part of a hospital and saving the life of another baby that was born at 24 weeks in another.

I still think that with all the medical advances that now enable premature babies of this age to survive, the abortion time limit should be lowered, apart from in exceptional circumstances. Pain or no pain.

It's for the mother/couple to decide about imho. I respect what others choose for them but I don't, for me, agree with abortion of a healthy child.

Fingers crossed for you DF.

Fingers crossed DF, it's awful that waiting. Ignore those who judge, they have no real idea what they would really do, they are just guessing.

DF - good luck. We paid extra for next day results because I knew how I'd be while waiting. I hope you have a good outcome.

We had to wait 10 days for full results.

yes, good luck DF, an agonising wait.

good luck DF

DF, good luck!

Good luck DuellingFango

Did your results come back as high risk? Is that why you had the amnio test?

Are aborted babies made to feel pain anyway (if indeed they could before 24 weeks)?
The abortion I had injected the baby first, to stop the heartbeat. The following day it was removed.
I don't think that injection hurt, I was told it didn't.

There is no pulling live babies out, or any of that silent scream nonsense. That just doesn't happen.

I've posted before, many times and yet the same old things come up.
I post as I'm one of the very few women who has gone through late abortion when I had no confirmation the baby had abnormalities.

I would hope people would see and accept what the real face of late abortion is, and see the reality of it.

And it's not nipping down the clinic because I had a night out planned.

oh gosh - thank you for all the good wishes I was a bit ranty earlier because it's been playing on my mind so much but am happy to say that the initial results have come in and we're in the clear.

Sorry for being so bolshy but I get a bit heated and worked up.

DF glad to hear that
Riven obviously not our burdens

Im so releived for you. Do you mind me asking you if your initial tests came back high risk?

Mine were low but lots higher than previous two. I am 31 weeks and a bit nervous because I am 39.

hi onEdge, my starting risk was 1 in 77 as I am 40 and it went down to 1 in 80 so really was less than a 1.5 chance of anything being wrong (this was for Downs Syndrom, my risk for the other chromosonal problems was lower) - I hadn't expected to be such a high risk, probably very naive of me and if I do get pregnant ever again then I will probably just go straight for an amnio rather than the Nuchal test.

1.5 % chance I mean.

OnEdge sorry to butt in and further apologies if you know this already - the risk is totally linked to your age. Essentially, at 39 you are never going to get a good result, however thin the nuchal fold is.

The risk is calculated on your age when you give birth, not when you conceive, bizarrely.

If you really want to know how good the result was then you need to check the actual measurement compared with how many weeks' gestation it was taken at. The Lesley Regan pregnancy book has some useful info.

I was 43 when I had DS2. My risk was apparently 1:40. After the nuchal fold measurement it went down to 1:88. I was told I "could not have got a better result really" .

1:88 didn't feel that great to me. I had to remind myself that I would have to have 88 babies to have a DC with Downs. I would have liked to know for sure to be prepared, also we were moving house and it would have been helpful to be able to consider particular schools and their catchment areas. But I didn't have any further tests as would not have terminated.

that's true BalloonSlayer. My risk went down with the bloods to one in 100 but then back up again when they factored in the nuchal measurement so really my risk did go down a lot even with a thicker fold of 2.4

Personlly I now think the older you are the more pointless the nuchal test is, though I have seen older women get 1 in 1000's results so I guess some get really very good measurements nd bloods?

I think it was 1 in 420

1st pregnancy was 1 in 62 000

They said it went down when the nuchal and blood tests were put into equation so i presumed it was my age that increased the risk.

I was 39 when our DTs (natural - I always feel that because I was soooo old, I must mention that ) were born and my readings were good for my age, but Kerrrist how I worried as compared to others on this very site, mine seemed terrible. YOu just worry, don't you, constantly.
So glad your initial results were good! Just take it easy now and hope all will be fantastic!

I was told my dd2 was likely to be severely disabled when I was over 24 weeks by the Consultant. He said if we didn't want to continue the pregnancy they could terminate. I said 'But I'm past the time limit' He replied 'Oh we can terminate at any point in the pregnancy if the baby is likely to be severely disabled.'

Luckily I asked for a second opinion - they said there was nothing wrong with my baby.

I now have a gorgeous dd2 aged 9, who does have a disability actually but not one they could have detected on the scan anyway!!!

one of the reasons I am anti flab - mistakes can be made.

Rollmops, you need to understand the reality of adoption in the UK. Babies are not adopted at birth. Even babies that are taken into care at birth (like mine) will take nearly a year to get through the system, resulting in them being moved between two or three mother figures before they are even one year old, and risking all kinds of attachment disorders and other difficulties. I am a great fan of adoption - it has given me a beautiful daughter - but I do not kid myself that it is an ideal start in life; my dd has already gone through more trauma and loss in her first year of life than I want to think about.

There is also very good research evidence showing the lifelong impact on birth mothers of giving their children up for adoption. Many suffer terrible trauma. Far more than those who suffer trauma after abortion. That may not be a popular argument with many posters, but it is backed by evidence.

The third issue with adoption is that so many birth mothers don't go through with it (particularly the very young ones). I have a close family member who got pregnant very young, and decided to give the baby up for adoption. She didn't - she saw the baby, found him very cute, and decided to keep him. Now, in many cases that would turn out to be a happy ending. Not in this case, or in many others I suspect. She ended up basically abandoning and neglecting the child, who then had to be raised by other family members. He didn't get a new start with adoptive parents who adored him; he got shunted from pillar to post with the clear understanding that his mum didn't actually want him.

This DOESN'T mean that I think women shouldn't choose adoption over abortion. It can be absolutely the right choice, and I think it's probably true that it is not given due airtime as an option by professionals guiding women through unplanned pregnancy. But I do think it's a difficult, complex, challenging option, and I hate the way it comes up in these debates as, "If you don't want the child, why not give it to someone who does?" It's nowhere near as simple as that.

Good luck DuellingFanjo. I'm sure it will be fine, and you will enjoy the rest of your pregnancy knowing your baby doesn't have any chromosomal abnormality (not just DS).

Ah, I just saw that you already got the good news