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'.
That's incredibly creepy ... foul, satanic evil. Was that Dr. Mephistopheles? Dr. Mengele?
God bless the healthy baby!
You just hit that nail on the head. Nobody checks the waste stream after an abortion to see if the doctor recommending it was correct. I don't even know if doing so is possible.
If a doctor recommends abortion and the parents agree, the doctor is right by definition. And the parents are probably so upset that they cling to the infallibility of the doctor, and never consider the possibility that he may have made a mistake.
Was it the fetal alpha protien blood test that the nurse/midwife depended on for that “diagnosis”?
It's the UK; "St. Mary's Hospital" is run by the government.
Medicine is an art, not a science.
Climatology, where consensus is King, is supposed to be a science.
Yes.
Ironically, the test results didn’t show anything approaching an 80% chance of our son having Down Syndrome.
Rather, it showed and INCREASE of risk of 80% - from a fraction of 1% to a larger fraction of 1%.
But based on the inability to understand the most basic statistics, this woman presented us with the “choice” of killing our son.
sitetest
May God continue to bless little Jake O’Connor and his loving Mommy and Daddy.
Awesome God bump!
My mother had the same choice to make in 1973 after getting kicked in the stomach (she worked in a nursing home).
Note the year, abortion was ‘all the rage’ in the medical community.
Thankfully, she made the right choice.
Sometimes they're right, sometimes they're wrong. Unfortunately, due to the social legitimization of "abortion" (the wanton murder of children), many medical "professionals" feel not only empowered but strongly motivated to quickly bring up the very most negative possibilities, no matter how remote. In fairness, much of this is motivated (at least here in the USA) by an absolutely visceral terror of lawsuits and of the subsequent desire to lay out, in the most stark and unvarnished detail, the worst-case scenario as being not only a possibility but an extremely likely probability. This removes them, or at least insulates them somewhat, from possible legal charges of "failure to adequately warn the patient of the consequences."
That being said, a nurse - midwife is not licensed to provide medical diagnoses, only nursing diagnoses. That is the realm of an MD or Nurse Practioner. From your description, it sounds as though this person was acting outside of her standards of practice, something that is rigidly adhered to by all healthcare workers who have even the most passing, vague interest in the concept of professionalism. It sounds also that she may have been motivated by a militant-feminist "empowerment" agenda that moved her to steer you into the murderous clutches of Planned Parenthood for "professional prenatal care"
My great hope is that everything turned out well for you and your family despite the efforts of this unprofessional and possibly criminal idiot.
“Sometimes they’re right, sometimes they’re wrong.”
In this case, the TEST was right, the NURSE-MIDWIFE was wrong due to her inability to count.
“That being said, a nurse - midwife is not licensed to provide medical diagnoses, only nursing diagnoses. That is the realm of an MD or Nurse Practioner.”
I’m not a medical professional, nor am I sufficiently familiar with the field to comment accurately on what you’re saying. She was a nurse-midwife, but may have also been a nurse-practitioner. I remember that she did have a Ph.D., and that not all the nurse-midwives in the practice had one.
However, it seemed standard practice that one of the mid-wives would provide the results from the AFP test. I know that the laws governing nurse-midwifery vary somewhat from state to state, and I don’t know what specifically is legal or standard in Maryland versus other states.
“It sounds also that she may have been motivated by a militant-feminist ‘empowerment’ agenda that moved her to steer you into the murderous clutches of Planned Parenthood for ‘professional prenatal care.’”
That wasn’t my impression at all. I think that she was just plain old dumb. Stupid. Not very bright.
The practice's senior-most member was quick to make the correction in diagnosis once she was alerted to Moron's mis-reading of the test results.
sitetest
Thanks very much for your clarification and I agree, stupidity seems to have oozed quite profusely in this case.
I’m delighted to understand that everything ultimately turned out well :-)
Apparently this is one of those rare times he was wrong, eh.
And Judge Smails NEVER hooks the ball.
What a beautiful, beautiful child!
Yes, everything turned out very well, thank you.
A lot of things upset me about how the whole thing was mishandled, but one of the things that upset me the most was how in the world someone had been able to get a Ph.D. in a technical field WITHOUT BEING ABLE TO COUNT TO TWENTY ON HER FINGERS AND HER TOES!!!
sitetest
And more and more of such stories are coming to air. The fact of the matter is - combine the socialized medicine in Britain that wants to cut costs any way they can... thus wanting to kill any imperfect babies, with so many selfish people who want nothing less than perfect (thus missing real love), you get a medical field that does not value human life - a very dangerous situation.
And I yet have to wonder if, at least in GB, if doctors are not paid a kickback for abortions.... And we know about the profit reaped by the abortion industry here in the US.
Abortion doctors must be some of Satan’s favorite disciples.
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