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| Hospital staff advised abortion but baby born healthy |
| Thursday, 18 February 2010 17:27 |
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There was a report on ABC Online (17 Feb, 2010) of where a Canberra Hospital recommended a late-term abortion for a baby who was later born healthy. Fiona Vanderhook was advised to abort her son Diesel, now 14 months old. When she was five weeks pregnant, a trainee doctor told Ms Vanderhook she had lost the baby and recommended termination using the drug misoprostol, but the drug did not work and a follow-up scan showed the baby was still alive. According to the report, later scans revealed the baby had fluid on the brain — a condition likely caused by the abortion drug Ms Vanderhook had been given. Despite six other specialist opinions that the baby would be born normal, Ms Vanderhook says a senior obstetrician at Canberra Hospital continued to press her to terminate the baby, even at 31 weeks, when termination would have involved inducing labour, the report said. "To have a baby induced and to watch him just die and not do anything about it? I was disgusted," Ms Vanderhook told the ABC. We know a few years ago there was a young lady (Ms Pierpoint) from Toowoomba who was also told her baby had died in the womb and was waiting for a D & C when she decided to go somewhere else and get a second opinion. That second opinion saved the life of her baby that would have been ‘D & C-ed’ out of this world. How many more pregnant women has this happened to that we will never know? The moral of the story? Get a second opinion, and a third and a fourth … Whatever it takes til you are sure you are being given an accurate diagnosis. http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/02/16/2821599.htm ABC ONLINE |