? baby induced to die ?

[moonbeem]

Please help me understand some possibilities of what may have happened, I've heard bits and pieces from grandparents and it is hard to wrap my mind around this. An aquaintence of mine was due to have her first child in Feb. I haven't had a chance to talk to her yet, I'll see her next month. I was hoping to make sense of the fragments that have been passed to me so far


Last mongth she had an ultra sound where she learned the baby had deformed limbs, and a major lung defect and was lacking internal organs.(?yep that's how 'the source put it') She had had a birth control injection before learning she was pregnant and this was thought to be the cause of the deformities.

Recently she was induced, she only labored for an hour and gave birth to a perfectly formed son. He survived for an hour. : He had little amniotic fluid.

My big question is if he indeed had limbs, was the other information was wrong? Of course a 6 month gestation baby will have imature lungs, but wasn't breathing for an hour quite impressive. Was there really anything wrong with the baby?

I'm skeptical of conventional medicine but do they seriously make errors of such magnitude? i.e. birthing a live embyro because they believe it to be wickedly ill, and they are wrong.

[SublimeBirthGirl]

I don't know what happened with your friend, but this is one reason I avoid ultrasound completely. I know they are not 100% accurate, and I don't ever want to have to think about terminating a pregnancy in any way.

[attachedmamaof3]

I really don't know enough to comment on what happened to your friend.

I do know that each and every ultrasound carries the possibility of being read very, very wrong as they depend on the individual skill of the technician and can be "read" differently by different people. In all the cases, IME with friends and family, all of the inductions carried out because of information gleaned from an U/S have been incorrect and in most cases to the detriment of mother and child. It's an unfortunate reality these days.

[balancedmama]

I can't comment specifically on this story as there's not enough information. But I do know that there are some conditions which are 'incompatible with life' where the baby can still be born and breathe on his own for a short while. A friend's baby was diagnosed with having no kidneys whatsoever, renal agenesis I believe, and thus he also had little to no amniotic fluid. She went into labor on her own prematurely, which they did not stop due to his condition. He was born and did breathe on his own for a short while, but his lungs were not formed correctly due to the lack of amniotic fluid and he passed shortly thereafter. There was no treatment that could be offered to him. Perhaps this is the case with the baby in your story. Sometimes babies with this condition also have some limb and facial deformities, sometimes not.

[Blu Razzberri]

I'm not really sure why you want to know; at this point. I'd just offer your friend your condolences, and ask if she wants to talk about it. I'm really sorry to hear about her baby, regardless of the possible medical error.

RIP Baby.

[moonbeem]

Originally Posted by Blu Razzberri

I'm not really sure why you want to know; at this point.

RIP Baby.

I've also had some pregnancy losses, and now i'm a new mom. maybe this somehow touches my grief but i can't stop thinking of this. My mind wants some answer. i am dwelling on many questions

thank you balanced, for your explanation and also am3 & sbg

[Spring Sun]

My sil is a sonographer and my fil is a perinatalogist. There is no way they would say there was no limbs and no internal organs and then induce only to find a normal baby. There are way too many safeguards and protocals set up around affirming any diagnosis so extreme.

I would guess that you are also expereincing tremendous grief right now, and are trying to make sense of the bits and peices that you have heard. I would say that doctors and technology today could not make such a huge mistake. This is coming from a woman who, when I showed my fil my home water birth video, pointed out everything wrong that the midwife did. But, I do know that he works with cases such as these, and being through his office and hearing all his stories, I can assure you that such a huge mistake would not have been made.

I will send some loving energy to your friend though, I can not imagine her loss.

[Charmie981]

I've heard of many situations where baby was found to have issues and mom had to choose to either induce early (in effect terminate) or stay pregnant indefinitely knowing that her baby would die at birth anyway. I can't say what I'd do given that choice, but there is ALWAYS the chance of medical error, however minute. Conversely, I've met a woman whose baby was found to have defects incompatible with life and she was not offered the choice to induce, but was told she had to continue the pregnancy. She couldn't do that and ended up having a second trimester abortion at a clinic. An autopsy found that the baby did indeed have all of the issues that had been previously diagnosed.

How to deal with the information from any test is always something we should think about before we choose to undergo those tests, for all of these reasons.

[tammyinca]

my good friend (who was a nurse) went in for a U/S and they told her that her babies leg was very deformed so she was prepared for that but he was born perfectly healthy. i have heard of many stories where the U/S was not accurate.

[Kontessa]

I was told my DS had low fluid and they could not find Kidneys. 18 ultra sounds after that, a new specialist told us he was perfect, and he is. He is now almost 2 and amazing.

18 ultra sounds.....

I caved with this baby on an ultra sound, I could not take the worry I had with my son. they did something to make the weight unreadable my midwife said, finally had someone else read it and said it was just a mistake and we should re-do it. Everything else was fine so I said NO!

Almost 38 weeks now and all looking well!

I am so sorry to hear about your friends baby and your pain. I would be asking all these things too. (((((((hugs))))))) My husband is in Iraq and I go fact finding any time I learn of something horrible, in the end though, what I learn can never really change what happened..... but one hopes it can help someone in the future.

Blessings,
Kimmy

[moonbeem]

Wow Kimmy wow...18? thank you for your post. i hope your family will be all together soon, and you have a beautiful birth

sharing and reading this thread is helping me 'get my mind around it'....

off to bed now


peace

[MsBlack]

First--

THIS is exactly why I am so opposed to ultrasound (well, other than the fact that it's longterm safety is NOT proven): oftentimes it gives 'good information'. A significant amount of the time, it does not--AND WE NEVER KNOW WHEN. A parent has NO REASON TO TRUST THE RESULTS OF U/S! Because the mistakes made can be huge, and can go either one way or the other...and we simply cannot know when the u/s story we are told will be right or wrong.

Second: it is quite possible that the u/s was ALL WRONG in this case. It is also possible that even without limb deformities, the u/s findings of missing/malformed organs was correct. You will never know.

third: most often--not always, certainly, but most often--babies with severe anomalies incompatible with life will not make it to term; they will spontaneously abort during 2nd trimester if not earlier. There are notable exceptions such as anenecephaly (lack of forebrain or more of brain), which babes do indeed often make it to term tho they do not live long in most cases (few min/hour/days). In any event, if you believe that your baby is certainly carrying anomalies incompatible with life, it may seem unthinkable to carry one minute more than you have to. ANd yet...and yet, if I were in this position, I don't know as I could abort either. I would be compelled to carry as long as baby could be naturally carried, just in case u/s was wrong. I could not see a good reason to take that risk, or stop loving my living child as many minutes as I was allowed to...I could not imagine the loss being easier by disposing of it under conditions that I chose, rather than surrendering to life.

Is loss by induced abortion any easier/harder than loss by stillbirth or death soon following birth....as for the woman who was not initially 'allowed' to abort--would she suffer less of a loss by letting go of her baby sooner, or more of a loss by having to wait (NOT saying anyone else should choose this for her, btw!)?

We try so hard to control life and it's uncertainties. We try so hard to attain some imagined perfection for our lives and children, we try to hard to sheild ourselves from pain, disability, death. But this is life, and life does now and always will have uncertainty, and surprises both pleasing and horrific. We are chasing our tails in trying to manage these things 'better' for ourselves through such imperfect measures as u/s. Now, this young mother has to live with this loss AND with the question of whether she made the worst mistake of her life in choosing to terminate. I cannot see how this is somehow better for anyone....only worse, much much worse.

[Zoo Loo Naturals]

I like what MsBlack had to say and I agree very much. Ultrasounds carry the risk of being wrong. We should ask ourselves what we intend to to with the information we receive from the scans before we have them, if nothing, maybe we should not have them.

I'm a strong advocate of nature taking it's course and life is imperfect and death is a part of it. I think the more we accept these things and allow life to unfold we will realize that there are forces beyond our crontrol. Surrendering to the mystery.

[mom2tillie]

IMO MsBlack said it best:

"Now, this young mother has to live with this loss AND with the question of whether she made the worst mistake of her life in choosing to terminate. I cannot see how this is somehow better for anyone....only worse, much much worse."

In my prayers tonight.

-Iris

[Joyce in the mts.]

I'm a strong advocate of nature taking it's course and life is imperfect and death is a part of it. I think the more we accept these things and allow life to unfold we will realise that there are forces beyond our crontrol. Surrendering to the mystery.

Me too.

Birth often walks hand in hand with death.

Life just is; Death just is.

The Mystery of it all just is.

... J.

[SublimeBirthGirl]

Originally Posted by Spring Sun

I would say that doctors and technology today could not make such a huge mistake.

The world was certainly easier to deal with when I still believed this.

[pampered_mom]

Originally Posted by MsBlack

We try so hard to control life and it's uncertainties. We try so hard to attain some imagined perfection for our lives and children, we try to hard to sheild ourselves from pain, disability, death. But this is life, and life does now and always will have uncertainty, and surprises both pleasing and horrific. We are chasing our tails in trying to manage these things 'better' for ourselves through such imperfect measures as u/s. Now, this young mother has to live with this loss AND with the question of whether she made the worst mistake of her life in choosing to terminate. I cannot see how this is somehow better for anyone....only worse, much much worse.

:

[birthgreeter]

such a sad thing to have happened.

I too do not trust ultra sounds...
not too long ago a woman I know had one, and was told her baby was trans. and complete placenta previa...if she had a Dr., prob would have had a c-section scheduled right away.
She had a midwife, and thus another ultra sound was done, and her mw did not have her drink the required amount of water...(it can distort the image) and baby was found in the position head down, and placenta where it should be-which the midwife knew anyway...(the women had wanted the US, the mw would not have ordered it other wise-no reason)

I could tell other times too of mistakes-but wont get into that. I too do not trust US. They are a tool-which can be so wrong.
This is just SO sad.

I am so sorry for the loss

[moonbeem]

Thank you all for the replies.

[Jilian]

How incredible sad. I used to be against ultrasound but now - not so much (see my sig). u/s has its place, but I would never fully trust u/s results either. I cannot even imagine how many healthy babies have been aborted due to false u/s results. Sad, really sad.

FWIW, there is a mama on another forum I frequent that had a baby with T18, she did not abort and gave birth to a baby who lived for a little over 2 hours.