Life is Prismatic: Older Pregnancies and Risk of Having Down's Syndrome Babies

Having a baby at an older age increases the risk of having a baby with Down's syndrome. Should you worry? The answer to this is NO. Too much anxiety is produced because misleading info is given to older parents who are having babies; when the mother is between thirty-five and forty years of age, the chances of having a baby with Down's syndrome is approximately one percent. This implies that you have a ninety-nine percent chance of having a baby without Down's syndrome.

Lawfully, your doctor should inform you that there is a test known as amniocentesis, which would discover whether or not your baby has Down's syndrome. This process is performed around the fourteenth or fifteenth week of pregnancy. You doctor sticks in a needle through your abdomen into the amniotic cavity and gets some amniotic fluid. This fluid is examined for abnormalities in fetal chromosomes, the sex of the baby, and specific chemical information that might suggest the presence of particular diseases. Amniocentesis is normally a safe procedure, but it is not without risks. The risk of trauma to the fetus is usually less than one half of one percent when done by experienced medical personnel. Due to the slight risk of injury to the fetus, a lot of mothers choose not to have this operation done. If you are highly anxious about having a baby with Down's syndrome, spending the whole pregnancy with this anxiety is likewise not healthy for your pre-born baby. Some moms choose this prenatal test to alleviate their anxiety even though they will not consider having an abortion. There are newer tests (alpha fetal protein, followed by chorionic villus sampling when indicated) that can be executed even earlier in your pregnancy to observe the presence or absence of Down's syndrome even as early as ten weeks after conception. Chorionic villus sampling bears a higher risk to the developing baby, it is not recommended. Some mothers just feel that the moment of birth is soon enough to become mindful of any problem that could not be adjusted while the baby is still in utero. Society, we feel, is slowly realizing that special babies truly are special babies.