Wow...what an interesting discussion!
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At some point someone asked why u/s was recommended at 20 wks: it's because at 20 wks, the baby is presumably developed enough to see all of it's relevant parts--and it is still early enough to terminate because babies can't be saved by med technology that early. So--if you have suspected anamolies, you can still legally terminate the pregnancy. However, a scan at that time is most likely to bring false positives, because the baby is still very much in the process of developing and there is no strict timeline for development at that point and beyond. There are still individual variations. We'll probably never know how many babies are terminated based upon false positive findings of u/s at that stage...and over the years I've known many a family to struggle with the intense stress and intensified med monitoring based upon 20 wk scan info--only to give birth to a normal baby.
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If you want a u/s mainly to help you prepare for the possibility of a baby with anamolies, then a scan at 28wks or even later makes more sense to me. By that time, the baby and all its parts are bigger and more likely to be more fully developed--so anamolies seen with u/s are more likely to be real. And if there are issues, there is still time to prepare for them.
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But BabieBeat--let's say that at 28wks, a cord issue is seen. What then? More monitoring, more u/s, you seem to be saying. Prevent some stillbirths possibly, by being ready to do a premie csec I suppose? It is true that now, med technology can save babies this young....but I ask, at what cost? The costs of such care are enormous on all levels, personally and socially. Can we as a nation continue to fund a medical system that may save some lives but otherwise increases the burden for all?Â
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This is a question we need to be asking--because to me, the increasing degree of medical intervention in our lives (at all points of our lives) has become a runaway freight train. I recently read that the majority of health care dollars is spent upon extending the lives of the very old/infirm, and those near death from terminal illness. I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing that med care for pregnancy/birth, particularly care for the youngest of premies or otherwise severely compromised newborns, comes close to those other 2 categories in terms of health-care dollars spent (along with other social costs under that kind of duress). No one wants to lose a loved one, and losing a baby seems to be especially difficult to bear. But I greatly question our wild abandon in relying more heavily all the time on med technology to save/extend lives--again, the costs are enormous and growing all the time...can our society continue to bear this?
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One last point: I have heard it said that 'cord accident' is a 'wastebasket diagnosis' in many cases. That is, when no other cause of death can be found for stillbirth, cord accident is assumed in many cases...without real evidence. Another thing is that some 'apparent cord accidents' occur because of faulty design of the cord itself in some cases. Normal cords have great capacity to resist the normal pressures/conditions of baby's life in utero, and labor/birth--including getting wrapped around the baby in some way. In some cases, the cord's development is faulty, and unable to withstand those normal stressors. If the cord itself is faulty, this can mean that the baby is generally compromised (the baby's general development is faulty in some way--at a cellular level if not in gross anatomy...for instance, kidneys may appear normal on visual inspection but on microscopic inspection at the cellular level they are not normal and won't be able to do the normal work of kidneys).Â
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Even true umb knots should be able to withstand normal uterine life and labor, due to the normal design of cords--if a baby dies in utero at 26wks seemingly due to an umb knot (as occurred for a friend of mine), there is reason to believe that the baby's cord was not adequately formed in the first place, because most often, umb knots do not pose a problem (as someone once said, try tying a knot in a hose with water running through it...you will have a hard time actually tying a knot tight enough to stop the water flow...and an umb cord has other features that a hose does not, further assisting its resistance to stressors). Who knows if, on finding that knot, further studies will be done on the baby to determine whether there were any other anamolies (possibly at cellular level) which were actually the cause of death? My friend was on state med insurance--not known for providing the med system with unending funds to do all that can be done in such a case. I highly doubt that in her case, all levels of autopsy were done to discover if there might be an underlying/cellular-level issue for her baby. She was told 'cord accident' and that was that.Â
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No one wants to lose a loved one, least of all a wanted baby! And yet we still must ask ourselves if preserving each individual life is more important than the costs of saving those lives--in terms of dollars along with all other costs to families and society on the whole--costs that in so many cases extend onward through the lives of those saved.Â
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Finally, people must continue to have a choice in these matters. For some, respecting nature/God's plan, is paramount--and that has to be ok. I for one can't see that with all the med technology in the world, that we have actually improved the general quality of life for humanity (or the rest of life--certainly not for the rest of life). Our medical system is highly toxic on every level...and that is something not everyone wants to support--nor should we have to. These are personal matters of faith and conscience.
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