Important post

Tributes to Althea Hayton

Althea Hayton, founder of Womb Twin, passed away peacefully on August 13 (sorry for the delay in posting this news on the blog). We are all ...

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Multifetal pregnancy reduction: what about the survivors?


I read this today:
Assisted reproductive technology (ART) and fertility drugs have greatly increased the number of multiple pregnancies in America.  The goal of MFPR is to increase the chance of a successful, healthy pregnancy. Multifetal pregnancy reduction:

  • Is usually done early in a pregnancy, between the 9th and 12th weeks
  • Is most often performed when there are four or more fetuses present.
  • Can be used to reduce triplets to twins. This practice makes the fetuses' chances of a healthy outcome the same as that of the average twin pregnancy.
  • Is known as "selective termination" when it involves a fetus with severe defects or one that is expected to die later in the pregnancy, which would threaten the life of the surviving fetus or fetuses. A multifetal pregnancy reduction improves your chances of avoiding miscarriage, carrying your pregnancy longer, and delivering one or more healthy babies.. Read more here
My thoughts: 
The loss of a triplet doesn't create a pair of twins. It leaves a pair of triplet survivors.
MFPR is a terrible decision for parents to make.


More...... 
Medical staff try to persuade women to go for single embryo transfer in IVF so there are not so many multiple conceptions:


The decision to reduce one or more fetuses is extremely complicated, and numerous factors must be considered, since the procedure has risks, such as loss of the entire pregnancy or preterm labor and birth of the remaining fetuses. In addition, there are also psychological risks for the mother. Typically women faced with this decision have struggled for years with infertility and now they are asked to consider terminating one or more of the fetuses to prevent morbidity and/or mortality in others. Nurses who work with infertile women may be able to assist in minimizing the need for multifetal pregnancy reduction by educating women about the risks associated with assisted reproductive technologies and higher order multifetal pregnancy before decisions are made about multiple embryo transfers or intrauterine insemination after ovulation induction. more......


I'm glad they are considering the psychological risks for the mother, but what about the effect on the survivors?  There are plenty of little womb triplet or quadruplet survivors toddling about now, who will probably never be told that their parents decided to "reduce" their brothers and sisters.
I hope that this work with womb twin survivors will provide the insights that the psychologists will need in a few years time to help these kids.

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