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Courageous Mother Delays Chemotherapy Treatment for Cancer, Saves Lives of Twins
LifeSiteNews ^ | LIVERPOOL, March 17, 2009 | Hilary White

Posted on 03/17/2009 12:31:05 PM PDT by GonzoII

Tuesday March 17, 2009


Courageous Mother Delays Chemotherapy Treatment for Cancer, Saves Lives of Twins

By Hilary White

LIVERPOOL, March 17, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - While some doctors routinely offer abortion in the case of women who are pregnant and facing cancer treatments, one British housewife has demonstrated that it is not always necessary to make such a difficult situation into a death sentence for the unborn child. Rachel Crossland, a British housewife and mother of six who had been diagnosed with cancer, refused chemotherapy and radiation treatment when she was informed she was 13 weeks pregnant with twins.

The Daily Mail reports that Mrs. Crossland was about to undergo surgery for a malignant tumour on her bladder when she found out she was pregnant. Mrs. Crossland said that doctors pressured her to have her children killed via abortion, saying, "The doctors told me lots of horror stories of what would happen to the babies if I had the treatment while pregnant and I was mortified."

"By then I was 13 weeks into my pregnancy and there was no way I could deal with getting rid of my babies and having to then fight cancer. That was the turning point and I decided I would take a chance."

The twins, Poppy and Saffron, were delivered at 32 weeks by caesarean section and surgeons surgically removed Mrs. Crossland's tumor with only a local anesthetic. She began chemotherapy after the twins were born and is now recovering at home with her husband, Adam, and her children.

She said, "I'm so glad that we all made it and now all I want is to get on with my life with Adam and be able to look after my children."

Although stories abound of mothers refusing treatment in favor of the life of their unborn children, medical studies have shown that a pregnancy during chemotherapy is not necessarily a choice between the life of the mother and the life of the child.

In a study published in the Lancet in 2004, researchers wrote that although chemotherapy can pose "life-threatening concerns" for a child in the womb, the "safe use of chemotherapy, especially during the second and third trimester, have been reported, and pregnant women with cancer can accept therapy without definite neonatal harm."

Another study by researchers from the department of Breast Medical Oncology at the University of Texas, also published in the Lancet in 2005, said that the timing of the cancer treatment with regard to the gestational age of the child, as well as the type of drugs used, "affect the risk of spontaneous abortion and miscarriage as well as that of congenital abnormalities."

The Texas study found that "foetuses exposed to chemotherapy in utero in the second and third trimesters can be carried to term, be born without evidence of congenital abnormalities, and develop normally." 

Researchers at the department of Internal Medicine at A, Meir Hospital, Sapir Medical Center in Israel, reported in 2008 that although the risk of foetal abnormalities is high with chemotherapy in the first trimester of pregnancy, "this risk diminishes as pregnancy advances." "When the diagnosis is made later in pregnancy standard chemotherapy regimen should be considered and usually pregnancy termination is not mandatory."

Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:

Cancer Chemo for Pregnant Women Safe after First Trimester
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/apr/06041310.html

URL: http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/mar/09031702.html


Copyright © LifeSiteNews.com. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives License. You may republish this article or portions of it without request provided the content is not altered and it is clearly attributed to "LifeSiteNews.com". Any website publishing of complete or large portions of original LifeSiteNews articles MUST additionally include a live link to www.LifeSiteNews.com. The link is not required for excerpts. Republishing of articles on LifeSiteNews.com from other sources as noted is subject to the conditions of those sources.



TOPICS: Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; United Kingdom
KEYWORDS: cancer; chemotherapy; childbirth; family; maternity; medical; moralabsolutes; pregnancy; prolife
 Who is like unto God?........ Lk:10:18:
18  And he said to them: I saw Satan like lightning falling from heaven.
1 posted on 03/17/2009 12:31:05 PM PDT by GonzoII
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To: wagglebee

ping


2 posted on 03/17/2009 12:41:53 PM PDT by sionnsar (Iran Azadi | 5yst3m 0wn3d - it's N0t Y0ur5 (SONY) | "Tax the rich" fails if the rich won't play)
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To: GonzoII

Trite response to this powerful story, but I can’t help myself. Poppy and Saffron are beautiful names for these two beautiful babies.


3 posted on 03/17/2009 12:42:23 PM PDT by GoLightly
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To: GonzoII

God bless this brave woman and these precious little ones!


4 posted on 03/17/2009 12:45:11 PM PDT by Faith
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To: GonzoII

May God continue His blessings on this woman and her family.


5 posted on 03/17/2009 12:47:09 PM PDT by OldBlondBabe
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To: OldBlondBabe

+1 on steroids. Fanfrickintastic news.


6 posted on 03/17/2009 12:56:02 PM PDT by guido911 (Islamic terrorists are members of the "ROP", the "religion of pu*&ies")
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To: GonzoII

What a wonderful woman. I can’t find my keyboard with all the tears.

I hate scare tatics and people that use them.


7 posted on 03/17/2009 1:09:53 PM PDT by freekitty (Give me back my conservative vote.)
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To: GonzoII

Well there are two that got away from the empty suit’s favorite charity, “ The murder of the most innocent”.


8 posted on 03/17/2009 1:41:46 PM PDT by chiefqc
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To: GonzoII; sionnsar; 185JHP; 230FMJ; 50mm; 69ConvertibleFirebird; Aleighanne; Alexander Rubin; ...
Moral Absolutes Ping!

Freepmail wagglebee or DirtyHarryY2K to subscribe or unsubscribe from the moral absolutes ping list.

FreeRepublic moral absolutes keyword search
[ Add keyword moral absolutes to flag FR articles to this ping list ]


9 posted on 03/17/2009 2:12:45 PM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: sionnsar

Praise the Lord for this woman’s courage! I hope when her children are old enough, someone shares with them what a true selfless hero their mom is!


10 posted on 03/17/2009 4:09:03 PM PDT by GWMcClintock ("When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do?" Ps. 11:3)
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To: GonzoII
Pinged from Terri Dailies


11 posted on 03/17/2009 4:57:12 PM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: GWMcClintock

They will. The article says she is recovering.


12 posted on 03/17/2009 5:21:33 PM PDT by sionnsar (Iran Azadi | 5yst3m 0wn3d - it's N0t Y0ur5 (SONY) | "Tax the rich" fails if the rich won't play)
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To: GonzoII
This is in direct contrast to the "parents" who wanted to kill this precious little one and made $$$$$$$$ for suing the hospital in another story!Image and video hosting by TinyPic
May God bless all these little ones, and may Phebe's parents come to see the error of their ways!
13 posted on 03/18/2009 8:54:28 AM PDT by pillut48 (CJ in TX --"God help us all, and God help America!!" --my new mantra for the next 4 years)
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