The number of high risk pregnancies today is skyrocketing because of increased age at conception, obesity, women with heart defects, AIDS, women who are cancer survivors and organ donor recipients, and women with multiple birth pregnancies as a result of fertility treatments.
More and more of these women are defying the odds, or at least what were the odds and going ahead with pregnancy anyway, regardless of past opinions and statistics. And an increasing number are despite some of these factors being life-threatening conditions, still successfully having babies.
Most results have been startlingly positive, so much so that the ideas of whose body is and isn't fit to have children is changing. However not all of these pregnancies end happily, and many believe that some of these women won't live long enough to raise their children, or that the children might inherit their mother's medical conditions.
About half of organ transplant recipients give birth prematurely often though by just a couple of weeks. More and more HIV patients are giving birth successfully as well. Many such pregnancies have been very controversial because of the risk that the mothers might be spreading the virus to their babies. However, modern AIDS drugs are effective enough at protecting the babies, thus, more doctors are accepting these women's choice to have children. HIV disease is now more commonly viewed as a chronic illness.
Many prenatal complications are becoming so common that nurses and midwives can manage them on their own instead of sending women to a high-risk specialists. Some Doctors are even replacing the term high risk with a scale of 1 to 10.
What do you think about this? Should women who risk dying before their children start school go ahead and try to get pregnant? Should women who risk passing AIDS onto their little ones, though the odds may be low, take that risk? Ultimately the decision lies with them but what would you decide if you were in their shoes?
2 comments:
I don't really know what I would decide. I think I would love to have kids (assuming I didn't have any yet) but I wouldn't want to jeopardize their health or have them grow up without their mother. It would be a very hard decision. I am not either against it or for it... it is that woman's choice and I can kind of understand both viewpoints. So I guess I can't really offer much of an opinion...maybe once it's not as early I'll try to think more, lol!
Well why would you want to give life to something if you can't stay around to raise it.. It's like buying a puppy knowing you have a day to live. I don't agree with that. You should be a strong healthy person. However some would disagree because Little people, peopel with disabilities make wonderful parents. It's just not always a good situation when there is already many kids in the foster care system.
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