termination for cleft palate

[Jimjams]

looks as if that story may have been true:

www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2092-904495,00.html

The title of the article says it all really....

a woman aborted at 32 weeks because her baby was gonna be short?? i am in tears reading that, at 32 a foetus is a baby, my neice was born at 32 weeks.
to abort because of a cleft plate is nothing short of disturbing. it can be fixed, its not life threatening is it? feeling angry and sad at the same time.

It is disgusting, and makes me ashamed to be a human. If someone had said to me at 32 weeks can we get rid of your baby he has a heart problem, i would have screamed. It really is disgusting

that's awful,ds was born at 32 weeks

A ver interesting artick . Tom Shakespeare is a very interesting guy, and makes some very valid pints. IIRC he has achondroplasia himeself, no impediment to his academic studies.

I saw this during the week on the news and the person being interviewed said it must have been a very difficult descision as the woman would have been feeling fetal movement so didn't take the descision lightly.....it was her right to decide.
Fair enough I thought but what about the right of the baby, after all we can all see here that babies born at this stage are fine.

I am disgusted.

Just out of interest, Tom Shakespeare does the intodruction to the Times free CD on Genetics. An excellent resource for any science teachers or home edders out there

I think it is terribly sad that someone would have to resort to such drastic measures. God knows what the woman must be feeling.

Thats disgusting..... my DDS were born at 31 and 33 weeks........ poor baby

I said this on the SN thread, but how did they know that the baby had a cleft palate. As this cannot be seen from a scan. My dd2 had a medium size cleft palate which wasn't discovered until (10days!) after she was born. I think there must be more to this story then is being made public, cleft palates/lips can often be symptomatic of other more serious problems. When dd2 had her op there were alot of babies with much greater problems than just a cleft palate,but like her, needed to get it fixed too.

is there a similar article anywhere that doesn't require subscription?

I think that it may depend on the degree of the cleft, and where it is. It may be that surface clefts are easier to detect than those in the roof of the mouth etc.

found a free article here

Evidently they can detect cleft palate with a scan.

I also think its outrageous (and I am generally in favour of the abortion laws as they stand). Perhaps they ned to tighten up the after-24-weeks rule. But where did the 32 weeks idea come from?

I think because some major problems can only be picked up late on in the pregnancy. When the law was changed, shortening the time limit, there was some concern that this would rule out termination in cases that were detected my amniocentesis (because of the time contraints on when the test could be done, and how long it took to get the results back). It was felt (IIRC) that some cases would 'run out of time' before the diagnosis was made.

Please understand I am not making any comment on the ethics of terminating in the case of severe problems, just putting out the information as I understand it to be.

Yes, that's how I understood it, HMB.

I meant we need greater clarification of what does and does not constitute a "severe handicap" (terminations after 24 weeks being allowed only in cases of "severe handicap" )

I have had a quick google on this and found this in the Harris Birthright Trust web site

'Most babies with a cleft will be normal in every other way. You will have noticed that the doctor scanned the whole of the baby very thoroughly to check for any other physical abnormalities and if any were found we will have informed you of this already. In a few cases a cleft lip or palate may be one feature of a more serious condition such as a chromosomal abnormality (Trisomy 18 or 13).'

So I suppose it is possible that the case could have been one of the rarer cases when an additional trisomy is present. As I understand it Ii Trisomy 18, 20 - 30% of babies die in the first month and 90% die by age one. Obviously each parent has to make the decision that suits them, but it would seem that if the cleft was linked to Trisomy 18, the decision would be rather different to a 'simple' cleft lip.

Lucy123: As far as I understand you can have a termination as late as 39 weeks if you get 2 consultants to sign it off...

I think terminating solely for cleft palate is abhorrent, too. But otherwise, I think MNet has seen huge debates over what counts as "severe disability". If our small community can't agree, how can the rest of society?

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I think that is must be terrible really, everybody has there own experiences. I just got told my child would not survive and he has. Don't want to judge anyone, people deal with things in different ways. I'm just happy i didn't listen to the medics

What a sad but profound article, Jimjams. I think he is quite correct when he says "We live in an age where there is decreasing toleration of disability and abnormality. Modern medicine has promised us perfect babies." On the one hand society now has policies which endeavour to be inclusive of everyone; OTOH, it seem society is also trying to exclude from any life at all people who have what is, imo, a minor problem.

I am pro-choice but there has to be a limit, surely? If a person really can't cope with a cleft-palate baby, why not have it adopted and let someone else enjoy the pleasure that child will surely bring?

And on the subject of late abortions, what do people think about this type of termination ? I nearly vomited when I read it - surely to god there has to be a better way of doing things? I shudder to think of what the foetus/baby suffers, esp at 9mths gestation and I can't believe the mother isn't psychologically damaged from this procedure. Does it happen in this country? I truly hope not - it's like something out of Nazi Germany.

sounds horrific, doesn't it, Suedonim?

I'm sure I've read elsewhere that it's not used in the UK and was very rare in the US before Bush banned it.

Oh, god, suedonim, that is sickening. Did it explain why doing it that way would protect the mother's health? (Couldn't read the whole thing ) How on earth must those present react when it is done like that?

oh my God....that is awful cannot get that out of my head now!

No, it didn't Janh. That's what mystified me - what clinical need is there for it?

I had a friend who had to terminate her pg at 5+mths, when it was discovered she had leukaemia. It wasn't nice, I think they injected saline into the womb and then induced her, but it doesn't sound as nightmarish as this procedure. The baby was a much wanted little boy, whom they called Harvey, and she loved him so much even though his tiny body was only about the size of her hand. Tragically, she died just over a year later, leaving two little girls.

Why has that come out with another name????? How weird!

Sorry sparrow, that is a tragic story