Smoking gives a false positive

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-495931/Smoking-linked-needless-tests-Downs-Syndrome.html

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Smoking is to blame for pregnant women undergoing needless and risky tests for Down's Syndrome, experts warned.
Scientists have discovered that chemicals in cigarettes distort the results of screening for disability.
They change a woman's body chemistry and give a false reading that a baby has a high chance of being born with Down's.
This puts women at high risk of miscarriage because they then have to undergo a further screening test for abnormality.

Those who had smoked just a few cigarettes a day came out with a high "false positive" score for an abnormal baby.

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All pregnant women in Britain are offered screening at the 15-week stage to check the foetus is developing normally. This process involves an ultrasound as well as a blood test which enables doctors to check for levels of pregnancy hormones.

Any mother-to-be who is shown to have a high risk of a baby with Down's is then offered a special test known as amniocentesis.

This involves a needle being inserted into the womb so that doctors can take a sample of fluid from around the baby. But medics only carry out this test in exceptional circumstances because t

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here is a one in 100 chance of this causing the mother to miscarry

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Have a read of this comment
Pre-natal testing for disability, whether accurate or not, is a form of fatal discrimination. It suggests that having a disability is a fate worse than death, and that killing disabled people, just because they are disabled, is an appropriate response to the challenges caused by disability. 90% of babies with spina bifida, the disability I have, are now aborted. I find this extremely offensive - something that should not be allowed, let alone encouraged, in a supposedly civilized society

MMmmm, it's just too sad for words isn't it.

Oh that's really interesting...I had not heard that before....

Very very sad

Cas

abortion stats in Australia
http://www.fpq.com.au/factsheets_brochures/student_info/Abortion_statistics.pdf

I also heard something like 20% of deaths of newborns in the Netherlands were due to the baby being disabled and not being allowed to live? Something incredible like that....how sad that society finds that acceptable. Oh we'll just call it something else.....

Cas

I am so shocked at those statistics, although I had feared they were higher. With more antenatal testing I guess they will go up even further.

Well i smoked (not heavy) when i fell pregnant with Amarli and probably had about 4 cigarettes while i was pregnant, i gave up when i was about 3mths and havent started again though i really only smoked when i was at work. And i got a high result 1 in 2 so go figure I really dont think smoking had anything to do with it.
I'm going to go against the flow with the testing and say that im totally for the new test that is coming out that will test for disabilities at 8to10 weeks into a pregnancy. This new test will be very acurate and im glad it is going to be available.
I had an Amnio to find out for sure if Amarli had Ds, not to abort but to get prepared. But i often thought of the person who might want to terminate, and how hard that would be if you were 20wks pregnant. It is not a pretty thought as to what these woman who choose to do this so late into a pregnacy must go through.
At least this new test can allow a termination to be done much earlier and to be carried out as a D and C.
I'm not so much thinking of woman with a dx of Ds but maybe for trisomy 18/13, these dx's are 99% fatal at birth. And to be honest if that was me i would be leaning towards a termination.
But i have to add that this thought never crossed my mind with Amarli and Ds, you know i thought if you have to have a child with a disibility then Ds was the way to go.

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I'm going to go against the flow with the testing and say that im totally for the new test that is coming out that will test for disabilities at 8to10 weeks into a pregnancy. This new test will be very acurate and im glad it is going to be available

My DH agrees with you and I’m starting to, to.
The amnio is so risky and any at least this way, baby’s lives will be saved as so many are lost with termination.
I would most likely have the new test now I think about it more. I’d not bother with the amnio, couldn’t live with myself if anything happened. But if I fell pregnant again, I would have the test if it wasn’t’ a risk to the baby, just so I knew.

You're good Robyn - I started the fags again the day we found out about the DS and haven't been able to stop again! I was so sure on the day Wil was born that I would never smoke again and then, bang, bad news sent me back to the evil weed two days later

I've never been a heavy smoker a pack would last me a week and i never smoked at home. But when i was pregnant with DD10 i got cravings for cigarettes and would get up at all hours of the night to have one and its b$%#%&! how they say smoking makes your baby small, she was 9lb, all my others were heaps smaller. I'm lucky though ive had no urges to smoke again and food does taste heaps better now i've always been able to stop just like that. but this time i dont think i'll start again. Though it has been hard to shift this extra weight

rlq02 wrote:

You're good Robyn - I started the fags again the day we found out about the DS and haven't been able to stop again! I was so sure on the day Wil was born that I would never smoke again and then, bang, bad news sent me back to the evil weed two days later

Hugs I too found it really hard to give up,. I smoked with my first two one was 6lbs 12, I smoked about 2 a day and the next baby was 8lbs 4 and smoked too much to confess.
I've been off them now for about 12years. I could never start again cause I could never give up again. My DH has given up twice, you’ll do it when your ready, it just happens like that, no matter how much you want to give up you cant and then something happens and you just do it.
you can do it

I smoked, with my 2 older boys, I cut down when I found out, and smoked 3 a day, but with Tori-Shaye I cut down until I had the amnio and then got the result... I smoked more. Feel bad for it, but it was my vice at the time. I can't go back and change it now, just did what I did to get me thru my way. And yes... I'm still smoking It ain't easy for me to give up, but I'll do it when I'm ready.

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but I still don't blame it on her having DS

I don’t think that is what is being suggested I think it's something like a chemical in smokes that gives the false positive??

Yeah sorry, I know... its just me being honest.. that I smoked thru the pregnancy ..