Originally Posted by
rprav8r
Correlation does not imply causation. I think there are many valid medical reasons for the NT scan that far outweigh possible risk.
As for "false" positives, the nuchal fold and other SCREENING tests - in order to find the affected pregnancies, the tests cast a wide net and will also flag normal pregnancies/fetuses. That's how they work. They are NOT diagnostic tests. Any provider who recommends termination based solely on NT results is negligent, IMO. Any provider who doesn't mention termination as a possibility is also not doing the patient a favor. I think there is a big difference between presenting termination as a possibility and urging termination.
My own experience with a baby with a diagnosis that was incompatible with life included multiple providers from genetic counselors, to RNs, to NPs, to OBs, perinatologists, fetal specialists, and surgeons. Not one urged me to terminate. In fact one said outright that he would refuse to treat me should I choose termination, despite the fact that it is legal in my state, and supposedly part of the services provided at the major medical center where he was employed.
Unless you lived it, it's just hearsay.
Originally Posted by
rprav8r
I wasn't necessarily responding to you, just to the general tone of other tangents on this thread that imply that someone with a screen positive on the NT would be pressured to terminate. That was not my experience at all, and I think that there's a lot of secondhand info that gets thrown about on threads like these that isn't necessarily the whole picture.
Mostly, I just want people to understand that the NT screen isn't the start of a "cascading intervention," so to speak, of being pressured to terminate. And, I also want people to understand that the NT is a screening test and is NOT diagnostic.
I think this is directed to me, since I did post about the possibility of feeling pressured to terminate. I did not write that to discourage anyone from having this (or any other test), but as an example of one reason why some people choose not to have prenatal testing.
Ry, I am very sorry for your loss. At the same time I am relieved to know that you were not pressured to terminate. Your experience is different than mine. That does not make my personal experience less relevant or hearsay. We also saw several professionals and sadly, some of them did encourage us to terminate and "start over". Fortunately, we eventually were referred to the perinatologist at the local Catholic hospital, who respected our beliefs. However, not all the pressure to terminate came from professionals. Sometimes the people in your life who you expect will support you through the difficult times fall miserably short of that.
No one person's experience is the "whole picture". That's why it can be helpful to hear the experiences of several different posters.
Gena
DS, age 11 and always amazing
“Autistics are the ultimate square pegs, and the problem with pounding a square peg into a round hole is not that the hammering is hard work. It's that you're destroying the peg." - Paul Collins, Not Even Wrong