UP TO 50 per cent of pregnant women attending a Dublin maternity hospital are choosing termination when they find out they are carrying a child with Down syndrome, according to a leading obstetrician.
Fergal Malone, professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at the Rotunda Hospital and the Royal College of Surgeons, confirmed the trend yesterday when commenting on the findings of a UK study which revealed that more than 90 per cent of women in England and Wales who found out during screening they were carrying babies with Down syndrome had an abortion.
“We are very different to the UK in patients’ responses to their diagnosis. We are doing a lot of screening now and 30 to 50 per cent of those who are diagnosed do not terminate once they get the information,” he said.
He believed this was because children with Down syndrome were visible and accepted in every community here but this was not the case in the UK.
In recent years specialised ultrasound and blood tests combined have become available at several hospitals here which can detect more than 95 per cent of cases of Down syndrome as early as 10 to 12 weeks gestation.
Asked if it was surprising that half the women attending the Rotunda who, when screened and informed they were carrying a baby with Down syndrome, were opting to travel abroad for a termination, Prof Malone said it was not clear if this was a new trend as many women would have gone to the UK for the screening test up to a few years ago.
Furthermore, he said, we have a multicultural society now and it may be that some of the women opting for terminations are originally from countries where Down syndrome is not as acceptable as it is here.
He pointed out that many women travel to the UK for terminations for “social and personal reasons” already, so “it probably should not be surprising people would go for this”.
Prof Malone stressed that, while an individual’s risk of having a child with Down syndrome increases with maternal age, the majority of Down syndrome pregnancies here occur in women under 35 years.
This is because there are a lot more younger than older women giving birth.
He said, however, it was impossible to say how many Down syndrome pregnancies and births there were here every year as there is no register of these kept like there is in the UK.