Parents of babies with disabilities often face pressure to have abortions when a scan shows their unborn baby has a severe medical condition such as Trisomy 13.
But a new study shows children with the medical diagnosis are living longer lives – minimizing one of the arguments in favor of ending their lives in an abortion.
The study, published in the American Journal of Medical Genetics, found that the median survival time of babies born with Trisomy 13 had almost doubled from three months to six months, when contrasting two periods up to 2021, and that almost 1 in 3 babies born with the condition were currently surviving for more than 1 year, a significant increase than had been previously found to be the case.
The researchers noted that the rate of patients with surgical history increased from 16% in 1996–2008, the first period under consideration to 28.% in 2009–2021, the latter period. The increased surgical intervention rate might have contributed to this improvement in average life span or survival time for the patients, they said.
The authors of the study – Trends in the survival of patients with trisomy 13 from 1995 to 2021: A population study in Japan– noted that studies in the USA and Canada had previously reported a median survival time of just 5–12.5 days in babies with Trisomy 13 – with more than 80% of infants dying by 1 year of age, although, conversely, approximately 10% of patients with trisomy 13 survived up to 10 years.
The significant improvement in the outcomes they now recorded for babies with Trisomy 13 in the 2009-2021 period – with median survival time of 179 days, and 1 in 3 babies surviving more than a year – corresponded with a rise in surgical interventions.
One doctor in the United States has had astonishing success with full treatment of patients with Trisomy 13.
Dr. Glenn Green is an ENT at the University of Michigan Mott Children’s Hospital.
In a recent article about a little girl named Faith, who has Trisomy 18, Faith’s parents say Dr. Green proactively treated their daughter in a way many other physicians do not.
Dr. Green was the first doctor to tell us that Faith had a short jaw. He immediately suggested she needed a jaw distraction. In fact, he referred to her as “an old lady” for this procedure because he usually performed it on infants. The procedure was very successful for Faith and changed her life because it ended the near-death situations from the breathing issues, and it even led to her taking her first steps shortly afterward because she could breathe.
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What we learned is that it comes down to the individual doctors and whether they view Faith as a valuable human being. It is appalling that we need to convince doctors that our daughter has as much value and worth as any other patient, especially since we are paying them to treat her.
Dr. Green loves these children with Trisomy 18 and other disabilities, which fosters a desire to help them to the best of his ability. We see the same in other doctors who value life beginning in the womb. The doctors who do not value disabled children in the womb are the same doctors who will not treat them after they are born.
Faith’s parents made it clear that many childrne with Trisomy 18 don’t survive because doctors don’t go the extra mile to care for them.
Most doctors offered no hope and said that she would not survive even after she was born. In fact, our family pediatrician dropped us without even telling us personally, and we had to learn this news from a cardiologist who was shocked by this unethical behavior.
We experienced doctors who lied to us and withheld diagnoses from us. One example of this was Faith’s short jaw, which was noted throughout her medical records but never mentioned to us. This can be a life-threatening issue, and it was for Faith.
We also had doctors who would not provide treatment options like providing us with a C-pap machine to help Faith breath at night. In fact, the head of the PICU told us, “No one does this for children like Faith.”
We learned the hard way that most doctors are taught that treating Trisomy 18 children is “a waste of scarce medical resources,” regardless of how plentiful the resources are in our nation. These children are dehumanized in the womb and the bigotry continues after they are born.
It’s little shock that doctors who actively care for and treat their patients see better outcomes. That’s why Dr. Green’s Trisomy 18 patients have such high survival rates.
Dr. Green and several other Michigan Medicine doctors have treated so many Trisomy 18 children sent their way that we now have a U of M study. Typically, only 10% of children with Trisomy 18 who are born alive will reach their first birthday. Even worse, when you consider the number of children killed through abortion and lethal neglect by doctors, only 1% survive to age one. However, the study by Dr. Green shows a very different story.
“When parents engage with full interventions, we have a 90% survival rate at the University of Michigan,” he says.
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