It was the right decision for her family, she said. She learned she was carrying a child with Down syndrome after having difficulty getting pregnant with her second child, and then a miscarriage. 'We truly felt that we were falling apart.' The news was devastating, said Laurie, a 37-year-old saleswoman who did not want her last named used. One Connecticut mother who terminated her pregnancy two years ago after a Down diagnosis said her doctor 'didn't paint the brightest picture.' 'Are they making it on facts and up-to-date information? Research suggests not, and that mothers get inaccurate, incomplete and sometimes offensive information.' 'I am concerned about mothers making that informed decision,' he said. As for the marriage, some couples do experience stress in raising a disabled child, but many grow closer. McLaughlin said she worried about how the child would affect her siblings and the marriage, and who would look after her when she and her husband died.īut according to a study by Skotko, whose sister has Down syndrome, siblings are patient and compassionate. 'Actually, she was much like our other children,' McLaughlin said. I was thinking she would be sitting in a chair unresponsive and drooling. 'She played hide and seek, and she kept jumping out, telling us where she was hiding,' McLaughlin said. The genetic diagnosis often comes as a shock, and many people assume that raising a child with Down syndrome will be fraught with heartbreak.īut McLaughlin was lucky to be connected with First Call, a program sponsored by the Massachusetts Down Syndrome Congress, which introduced her to a family with a 5-year-old girl who has the disorder. Instead, 15 percent fewer such babies were born during that time, representing a 49 percentage point difference between expected and observed rates, according to Skotko's research.Īnd without knowing what it's like to raise a child with Down syndrome, many women will make their decisions based on misinformation - and myths - about the disorder, researchers say. In the absence of prenatal testing, the United States would have experienced a 34 percent increase in the number of Down births between 19, Skotko estimates. There's also worry that more people will deny themselves what some call the 'gift' of raising children with Down syndrome.Ībout 400,000 Americans have Down syndrome, the most common genetic condition in the United States, which produces an array of challenges, including retardation, delayed language and slow motor development. The number of Down Syndrome cases is declining enough in the United States to raise concerns that research funding to study the congenital condition will dry up.

Risk down syndrome by age