Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
Jan
25
Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
“You Will Have To Come Back For An Abortion Thursday.”
“You will have to come back for an abortion Thursday.” – OB to mother who had been screened for genetic disorders without her knowledge and had a result that indicated an abnormality.
There are 69 comments to this post.
Erica Douglas had this to say,
Jan 25, 2012 @ 10:35 am (Quote)
Well, that is just part of the reason I flat-out refused any and all genetic testing. I would keep my baby no matter what and I didn’t want the worry if the doctor *thought* something *might* be wrong.
But WOW. This is SO WRONG, on so many levels.
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Nice that they ASS-ume that I’d be aborting my baby if it wasn’t 100% healthy. I have heard the word abortion in relation to a D&C, but those babies have already passed. I am flabbergasted at how insensitive and cruel this OB is!
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Kim Reply:
February 2nd, 2012 at 3:40 pm (Quote)
Actually a D&C is a procedure used for both early term abortions and miscarriages. It means dilation & curettage which refers to the methods they use in the procedure (dilating the cervix and using a curettage to scrape out the uterine lining).
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The implication that no mother want her baby because s/he’s imperfect is sickening to me. If a mother decides to end a pregnancy on her own that’s one thing, if she is forced to it’s entirely another, abortion debate aside.
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Stephanie Shields had this to say,
Jan 25, 2012 @ 10:57 am (Quote)
The ONLY thing that comes to mind is this OB needs to loose their license! That is for the parents to decide…NOT them!!
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first time mommy had this to say,
Jan 25, 2012 @ 11:25 am (Quote)
Oh no! 
please, please, please tell me the mother found out and reported the OB at very least.
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Ugh, AWEFUL.
One of my favorite things about my doctor is that she told me that genetic testing was available, but followed it up with, “But I don’t generally recommend it.” I said I wasn’t interested unless knowing something ahead of time would allow us to help the baby, and she said, “No. If it won’t change your mind about whether to carry to term, then there’s no point.”
Issue resolved. Awesome doctor.
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Nica Reply:
January 25th, 2012 at 11:45 am (Quote)
I think we have the same awesome doctor. With my first pregnancy, we discussed genetic testing. Her feeling was, succinctly put, if I did not plan to terminate (I didn’t), then there was no point in the testing. She recommended not testing. I didn’t test with either of my pregnancies and have no regrets. I don’t feel this is the right choice for everyone, but it was the right thing for me and I’m glad my doc was supportive.
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Ashley Reply:
January 25th, 2012 at 12:23 pm (Quote)
This was my doc with our first as well…actually it went more like “You don’t want the testing done, because its not going to make any sort of difference to you, right?” (We have known each other for years and she knows us pretty well, so this was a safe assumption on her part!) After we confirmed that we didn’t want it done, she nodded hasn’t mentioned it since, and we have had two more babies with her.
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Serene Reply:
January 31st, 2012 at 6:48 am (Quote)
Please say you meant “awful”, because “aweful” means ‘full of awe’.
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Trbobtch Reply:
February 8th, 2012 at 11:03 am (Quote)
Actually, “aweful” isn’t a word at all 
The opposite of “awful” would be “awesome” meaning to create or inspire “awe” instead of “full of awe”. Interestingly, awful has the same meaning as awesome, to inspire awe, but with a negative connotation.
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If she was screened for disorders without her knowledge, that implies it was a blood test rather than a definitive test. The amnio, CVS and ultrasound would all be tests that could not be performed on a mother without her knowledge unless she’s unconscious.
Therefore I’m assuming the quad-screen…which is a SCREENING test! It only exists so doctors can know which moms would benefit from further testing! You’re not supposed to decide *anything* based on those numbers. They just tell you whether you’re at higher risk for a baby with certain anomalies. These tests MUST be followed up with other tests that say definitively whether something is wrong with the baby, and if so, what they were!
This doctor isn’t just violating his patients’ rights, but is also practicing lousy medicine. I hope this mother didn’t come back on Thursday.
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Rachel T Reply:
January 25th, 2012 at 11:41 am (Quote)
This! The screening tests are always supposed to be confirmed with follow up testing that is more accurate. They only indicate an elevated rick of a disorder, they are not a definitive diagnosis.
And they are tests to allow a family to choose whether they wish to continue a pregnancy, not tests that dictate how the family must act.
Inaccurate and presumptuous.
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Dawn Reply:
January 25th, 2012 at 11:44 am (Quote)
Exactly what I was thinking. I had one baby test positive for Trisomy 18. Fatal condition, and if you get a positive screen they have found that 1 in 11 women actually end up with a baby who is affected. Out of the other ten something like 3-4 will have some other condition. Those are scary odds (no matter the number they give you). Well, my baby did NOT have it and only had bad vision corrected with surgery and glasses. The next baby tested positive for Downs, again, she does NOT have Downs. So, I put no stalk in those quad screens. They only tell you the risk of possibly having a baby with something. Even with signs on sonogram, you can have a baby unaffected.
Next thing is that if you do have a baby with something different, that doesn’t automatically mean abortion. CARAZAY!
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CAJ Reply:
January 25th, 2012 at 1:49 pm (Quote)
That’s right dawn
And how many times have we heard the stories of Doctors recommending termination because the baby will 100% not make it to term or will be born, take a breath and die, but the mother refuses and the baby is born perfectly healthy!
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Bullcrap. I knew for sure that my child had a major physical abnormality, and I didn’t have to have an abortion.
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Tasha Reply:
January 26th, 2012 at 8:32 pm (Quote)
My cousin did, too. Her baby did not develop correctly and had no chance of survival outside of the womb, but she was induced early and allowed to give birth to him. She was not given a “forced abortion” like this doctor seems to think he has the right to do!
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Oh HELL no!
First of all, screening without her knowledge translates to “no informed consent” since if she didn’t know it was happening, she couldn’t give consent in the first place. Second of all, “you WILL HAVE TO come in?” Oh HELL no! You do NOT tell a mom that she “will have to” come in for this procedure.
I can’t even put into words the amount of disgust and horror this post gives me. OP, I’m so sorry you had to deal with something like this!
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Or how ’bout this: your office will have to give me all of my medical records so I can take them to another care provider who a) won’t do tests without my consent and b) won’t make assumptions about the way I care for my child. Thanks.
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I hope this mama didn’t need to make the decision of whether or not to let her pregnancy continue. I see many people posting that they would never terminate their pregnancy, but that really isn’t the situation here. This Momma isn’t being given the information to make an informed choice. If we’re reading the posting correctly, the doctor doesn’t even have that information. If she decides to terminate after getting that information, this doctor was still in the wrong.
When pregnant with my daughter, we had a scare with the quad screen. Not so much about the results (we did have an abnormal value which indicated a higher chance for spina bifida) because they were clear about it being screening not diagnostic, but because it turned out in the genetic screening paperwork that I had a tay-sachs carrier in my family and I didn’t know it- and I had never been tested as a carrier. I hadn’t worried about it, until the geneticist told us that the part of the country my husband is from also has a high incidence of carriers. I was pregnant and consented to the amnio so we could go ahead and have her tested as well as getting me tested.
I can’t be sure what I would have done. A friend of mine found out she was a carrier when her child was born with tay-sachs. That’s a very hard and short life for a child.
Luckily, I’m not a carrier (Thank G-d!) and since the diagnostic tests showed we were in the clear for spina bifida, I never had to make that choice, but I can never again say anything about anyone who has to make that choice. Just considering the possibility of a baby who would not survive (tay-sachs is 100% fatal by school age) and would be suffering was the hardest time I’ve ever had to spend.
We had discussed other disabilities when we first got the referral to the geneticist and perinatologist, and I had decided I would not terminate for something that could be lived with, and one of the OBs had already mentioned that the hospital I was delivering at had an excellent department dealing with infants with disabilities. Everything changed when it was something that would absolutely be fatal was on the table and I realized I could never again say there was no way I would terminate a pregnancy.
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Robyn Reply:
January 25th, 2012 at 2:40 pm (Quote)
I agree. I would never judge someone who decided to terminate based on the idea that their baby will have severe conditions (specifically ones that are incompatible with life).
That being said, I would like to think that I would not terminate under any circumstances. However, I know that it is easy to say. The decision you make when actually faced with something like that can be completely different than whatever decision they originally think they’re going to make. Someone who thought they could never terminate decides that they’re not strong enough to hold their baby only to let them go forever minutes or hours after their birth. On the other hand, someone who thought she could never carry a pregnancy like that to term decides that she doesn’t have the courage to get rid of the baby and would rather let it go on it’s own terms.
Whatever decision a woman/couple/family makes about things like this, it is THEIR decision to make and not the doctor’s. And in order to make that decision, they need all the information and not just screening results.
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That’s appallingly callous and presumptive.
OP: I’m so sorry you had such a revolting Doctor.
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1. First, if it was the screening, you don’t know the child has the condition. And if it wasn’t, how’d you perform the follow-up testing without the mother’s awareness?
2. Excuse me, she didn’t know it was being done? So you didn’t get her consent? Not cool.
3. You don’t TELL HER the results first, and what the condition is?
4. You tell her she must abort and when?
…fail. So, so, SO MANY layers of fail. Give the mother the information, if it was only a screening suggest follow-up tests and not abortion, in fact whatever it was make reasonable evidence-based suggestions about what the possible courses of action are, and then *wait for her decision*.
OP, I am so sorry. There are so many layers of what is wrong here, and what a horrid, horrid way to be “given” the news of the results.
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Okay, this is totally off topic and I sincerely apologize for that. I just don’t know how else to go about asking without just posting a comment. Does anybody know why some comments go into moderation and some don’t? Most of the time, I post a comment here and it goes right through with no problem. Every once in awhile, I post and it tells me that my comment is awaiting moderation. (Like a comment I just tried to post!) I’m at a loss because I’m not saying anything inappropriate that would cause my comments to be flagged or anything. Again, I apologize for having to ask here but I can’t figure out how to go about getting an answer otherwise.
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Jane Reply:
January 25th, 2012 at 2:24 pm (Quote)
I’ve noticed sometimes that if I post using words that are often used during an inflammatory/argumentative post, the post gets flagged for moderation. I think once I used “how d-a-r-e” and it got flagged. Also the A-word once.
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Tee Reply:
January 25th, 2012 at 2:51 pm (Quote)
The comment is still awaiting moderation and all it says is “And really, that’s the bottom line of all of it. Where does any doctor get off telling a person they have to do something?”
I figured the site might have keywords but I sure can’t figure out where they could be in this post.
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My OB said WHAT?!? Reply:
January 25th, 2012 at 5:07 pm (Quote)
Your question, TEE is one we wonder about too! The site is set for comments from users that have not posted before to go to moderation, (this catches a lot of the spam) but sometimes it catches users who should have been able to post without problem. We try and swim through those comments several times a day to pick out the “good” ones! Sorry yours have ended up there! Also, comments with lots of outside links get flagged, since that is often spam. Sometimes WordPress seems to have a mind of it’s own. MOSW staff.
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I actually have a condition that parents can now test for in-utero and abort, so I’m not ok with aborting a baby because it’s disabled.
But that aside, this doctor had no permission, has no definitive evidence except probably a screen, and has decided this baby should die because of it? You know only 1 in 3 of the diagnosed downs babies in utero actually have downs? Doctors don’t always give that fact when they tell you the test result.
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This was me. I got a call from my OB telling me that I had a quad screen done that had indicated a highly elevated chance of Trisomy 18 (1 in 10 chance). She said it was essential I come in for amnio right away. I didn’t know I had even had the genetic testing done and was still reeling from the information she provided about Trisomy 18 when she told me in 24 hours I would have the results, and if they came back positive for the disorder, I would have to come back for an abortion the following day. She offered no other options at that time and told me they could schedule the amnio in another hour. It was an all-around horrible experience.
The happy news: the amnio came back negative and in October 2010 we delivered a beautiful, healthy baby girl.
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NewMommy Reply:
January 25th, 2012 at 5:24 pm (Quote)
I am so relieved your daughter was healthy. Part of the reason I refused the quad test is due to the false positives I heard about.
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BeckyJ Reply:
January 26th, 2012 at 10:38 am (Quote)
OMG! They told you to KILL YOUR PERFECTLY HEALTHY BABY!!! MONSTERS!
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Rebecca Reply:
January 26th, 2012 at 11:06 am (Quote)
While I do think the doctor jumped the gun, they did say to come back for the diagnostic test and ***IF IT CAME BACK POSITIVE*** come back for the abortion. I’m actually somewhat releived as we all thought there was no diagnostic test involved with the original posting. Still wrong to make that assumption for the OP.
OP, I’m glad your baby was healthy, and hope your reported the doctor for making assumptions about your wishes.
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Katherine Reply:
January 26th, 2012 at 11:58 am (Quote)
So glad all worked out well. That is horrible that they would make such an assumption. I turned down genetic testing because A) I didn’t fully trust their accuracy and B) If my baby was + for something it would not change the outcome, personally I would still birth my baby. Likewise, I find it classless that they do this over the phone. I know a lot of practices have a no phone policy for bad news and that is as it should be.
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Something upwards of 90% of those “positive” tests for Down Syndrome and other genetic disorders are aborted; perhaps the OB was just used to scheduling the abortions as a matter of course.
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Details Reply:
January 26th, 2012 at 4:59 am (Quote)
I hope you aren’t suggesting that that makes it okay? Would it help if I pointed out that many woman who would never abort also skip the testing so women who go for the testing are a self-selected group more likely to abort. This woman didn’t get a choice in the testing. Don’t forget that little fact.
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Corita Reply:
January 26th, 2012 at 3:08 pm (Quote)
Oh, no, I wasn’t suggesting it was ok to talk like this to the mother; I was acutally just thinking about the fact that so many of those tests end in abortion. Which makes me sad, for a number of reasons including the fact that it shows how we think of people with disabilities in our society.
But anyway I agree that this OB was suffering from what so many hcp’s who get quoted on this site suffer: Non-think-itis, also known as “I stopped caring about the connection between the brain and my mouth three hours ago.”
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I never got those tests because I read so many reports about how 3/5 to 3/4 of all genetic testing (except amnio, CVS, etc) give very high false positives…
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Maura Reply:
January 26th, 2012 at 5:47 am (Quote)
That’s part of the reason that I don’t have the quad screen done – since a positive wouldn’t change anything for me, and the 20wk anatomy scan can pick up many issues. BUT, to be fair, a screening test SHOULD have a higher rate of false positives than false negatives, so that appropriate follow up testing can be done.
To the OP: I’m sorry your OB was so abrupt with you. It was absolutely the wrong way to give potentially devestating news.
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Mama Wrench had this to say,
Jan 25, 2012 @ 7:30 pm (Quote)
To be fair, not everyone who has genetic testing done, does it for the purposes of terminating the pregnancy. I had testing done because I wanted to be prepared if there was something wrong, but I’d never terminate unless my life was in immediate danger from the pregnancy. Yes a lot of women do it in order to avoid giving birth to a “defective” baby but some do it just to be either reassured or to prepare themselves.
Of course, either way, it’s up to the MOM to make that decision, not the doctor… what a creep.
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“Who even said I WANTED an abortion? NOT ME!”
That was completely assinine! There are false positives all the time on those tests! And even if there were something like Downs Syndrome, it doesn’t mean they aren’t people! Children with mental delays are some of the most beautiful people ever!
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I think some people have misinterpreted the story a bit. She definitely did not tell me to abort before finding out if the amnio was positive, but she did tell me that if it was positive, I would have an abortion the next day. Still horrible, but not as bad as suggesting to make that decision simply based on the quad screen.
Also, I had already told my doctor I definitely did not want genetic testing and then when I saw a different doctor in the practice at my 16 week appointment, he said, “You are going to do a blood test to make sure everything is going well.” I have learned to always ask questions!
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BeckyJ Reply:
January 26th, 2012 at 10:57 am (Quote)
Wow. Another doctor that doesn’t offer consent. “You’re going to”?
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Kate Reply:
January 26th, 2012 at 11:03 am (Quote)
Yeah. And then we got a $500 bill for the amnio. We had to fight with the office for months to get them to realize that we had not given consent for the testing and that my doctor had insisted on the amnio. Eventually, the balance on our bill “went away” but never did they ever say they should have gotten our informed consent. I was told that as a patient it is my job to ask what the tests are for, not for them to tell me because by giving the blood, I gave informed consent. So, like I said, I learned a lot.
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Becky Reply:
January 26th, 2012 at 5:48 pm (Quote)
WOW! I have a hard time finding words for the arrogance (and “wrong-ness”–can’t think of the right word just now) of that practice in saying that it was your job to ask the questions! NO WAY!!! It is their job to explain everything to you adequately! Ugh.
Ok, rant over. I’m sure you know all this now. I’m so sorry you had to learn it the hard way though.
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Christine Reply:
January 27th, 2012 at 7:10 pm (Quote)
Actually I do think she was awful to say “abortion if positive.” Even Tri18 babies can live for weeks or rarely months. An ob has NO MEDICAL GROUND to stand on to recommend an immediate abortion of a trisomy 18 baby. Yes, they do die. But so do we all, folks. They don’t all die at birth, they don’t all die in the hospital! And the hope of having my baby die of NATURAL causes, preferably in my arms, would absolutely sustain me through a pregnancy. I can’t believe the OB went straight to the “let’s kill the baby” option. Puke.
As to the “blood test to make sure everything is well” nonsense, I detest being talked down to. Miserable people, truely inhumane.
Glad to know your baby was fine, though!
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Lisa Reply:
January 31st, 2012 at 8:00 am (Quote)
More than months, in cases. Doesn’t Rick Santorum’s 3 year old daughter Bella have Trisomy 18?
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SculptorAlison Reply:
February 9th, 2012 at 6:39 pm (Quote)
I had a cousin with Trisomy 18 who lived for a little longer than a month. I never got to meet her because we lived very far away but she was very sweet and very much a baby for that month and our family loved her and she knew it.
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I do not even have words.
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Trisha Reply:
January 25th, 2012 at 11:35 am Trisha(Quote)
NONE.
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