Heather O'Connor with her son Jake
Posted on 07/23/2007 10:22:11 AM PDT by Stoat
A couple were advised by medical experts to abort their unborn child amid fears he would be severely disabled - but he was born perfectly healthy.
Heather O'Connor and Jamie Bramley went through months of turmoil after being told that scans suggested part of the baby's brain could be missing. But Jake, their first baby, arrived weighing a healthy 7lb 9oz - and with no defects.
Consultants at St Mary's Hospital in Manchester had recommended Heather should abort her child early in her pregnancy in March. But the couple asked for a second opinion and a professor at the Royal Hallamshire Hospital in Sheffield disagreed, saying he believed the child's brain was normal.
Heather O'Connor with her son Jake
St Mary's doctors continued to have serious concerns until April, when they said a further ultrasound scan had indicated the child was fine. However, in May, a St Mary's consultant again said they believed the baby's brain was abnormal.
Heather and Jamie decided against a further examination at Sheffield and decided to go ahead with the pregnancy.
Jamie, 24, and Heather, 19, of Heaton Chapel, Stockport, spoke of their anguish in the months before Jake's birth.
It started after a scan at Stepping Hill Hospital in Stockport suggested the child had swelling on the brain and Heather was referred to St Mary's.
Heather had a detailed scan there and doctors said the baby had brain swelling and might have a rare defect. "They said he may end up brain dead or severely disabled," said Jamie.
"They said the scan was 99 per cent reliable and recommended abortion. We were distraught. I asked for further investigations, but the doctor said he was rarely wrong.
"Heather was very distressed and we agreed to go to Sheffield for an MRI scan. The professor at Sheffield said that in his opinion, the baby may be fine. But then at St Mary's, a doctor said the pictures from Sheffield were inaccurate to him.
"We were more confident after seeing the expert at Sheffield, but because of St Mary's views, there was always an awful doubt in our minds."
Heather said: "You didn't know who to believe. But after our experience, maybe other people will not give up hope if something similar happens."
The Central Manchester and Manchester Children's University Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs St Mary's, said: "The decision whether or not to terminate a pregnancy because of a suspected abnormality is a highly individual one and we take great care to ensure patients are aware of all of the facts to allow them to make an informed decision."
The trust said it would 'not actively recommend or dissuade' patients from choosing a termination, but apologised if the family 'were given the impression that they were being advised to take this option'.
Heather O'Connor with baby Jake.
Told to abort perfect baby - Health - News - Manchester Evening News
God bless this baby and his family for not aborting him. May he live a long productive life. As a Dr. perhaps who ENCOURAGES women to have and love their babies no matter what.
God bless that 20%.
Scientific instruments and people who believe in scientific “consensus” are a dangerous combination.
_________
The deep end is at the other end of the pool.
Your comment is just a tad overstated. I’d venture that 10’s of thousands times a day, scientific instruments and the consensus of medical professionals work absolute wonders.
To mix my metaphors horribly, feel free to throw the baby out with the bath water.
Can you say “GLOBAL WARMING”!!!!!!!
My cousin and her husband were told with 100% certainty that their son would be profoundly deformed and would die shortly after birth. They were told to have an abortion to avoid the anguish of giving birth, but couldn’t bring themselves to do it, thank God.
Today their son is a healthy college student. He was born with absolutely no defects whatsoever, and has been completely healthy his entire life.
ping
What a precious baby
How can a hospital be called ST. Marys and recommend an abortion.
Our last born, we were told he had some kind of cysts or something on his spinal cord and we “should consider taking action” because there is a good chance he will be born with staggering brain damage. He’ll be one next month and he’s a healthy, happy baby boy(Thank you Lord). That was an unnecessarily stressful time for us. Sometimes they think they know too much and we all need to trust God more.
I thought that this might be of interest.
In our case, the stupid moron nurse-midwife misunderstood the statistics of the outcome of a pre-natal test. In her criminal stupidity, she, of course, raised the specter of “choices” that we had.
sitetest
We had an experienced ultrasound technician tell us that our son was definitely a girl and I observed him make a note about def. cleft lip.
“Misdiagnosing” gender makes for a funny anecdote, but trying to rely on fuzzy technology to determine anything and everything without any sense of moderation is simply fanatic.
Recommending the death penalty needs a better record than 90% obviously they were wrong, if they were wrong then they could not have been certain, and if they were not certain they should not have made the recommendation until they became certain. Your best estimated guess does not support a death sentence.
Check to see if the hospital or clinic has a ‘tissues’ contract with a harvesting agency supplying ‘parts’ to research programs. It’s a more than a billion dollar industry now; got to have tissue sources don’tchaknow.
A woman I work with has four children. For all four pregnancies, the doctors predicted the baby’s gender. In all four cases they were wrong.
If the medical profession would stop treating childbirth as a disease, we might all be better off. Medicine, for all of its tests and fancy equipment, really has little understanding of the human body and how it works. And their knowledge about reproduction is probably less than 0.
The mother is pretty cute herself, too.
Dear MHGinTN,
I don’t think there was anything sinister going on here. Just stupidity. Just an inability to understand basic arithmetic and descriptive statistics.
We were working with a group practice of nurse-midwives. All they did was deliver babies.
sitetest
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.