Thursday, November 16, 2006

The myth of Amniocentesis risk

Amniocentesis not linked to miscarriage - Reuters via Yahoo News - 11/16/06 "Pregnancy loss was rare in women who underwent amniocentesis and the rate was comparable to that seen in women who did not have the procedure, suggesting that amniocentesis itself really didn't raise the risk of pregnancy loss.
In fact, among women older than 35 years old, the loss rate after amniocentesis (1.06 percent) was actually lower than the loss rate for women who did not undergo amniocentesis (1.92 percent), the researchers note."


Since we're expecting a child we did quite a bit of research on the risks of amnios. As we found out almost all information currently available regarding risk was unfounded and wrong. What does that say about the prenatal health field? This is the second study to find the risk to be incredibly low. Imagine all the parents who opted away from amnios and had children born with genetic diseases that cause tremendous suffering and often short lives. Needless suffering through ignorance. Let's hope obgyn's get the message soon - the old 1 in 200 miscarriage number was never accurate - not even close.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for continuing to pass along the word about Amnio's. I know that for our little Priscilla, we were very grateful in so many ways to have the amniocentesis. We had many things working against us and it gave us the advantage of knowledge - which was very powerful for us - as our little one began to grow and thrive.

David Humphrey said...

Hope Priscilla is thriving! I think the word will spread. Just the other day at our obgyn they had already begun talking about the study. Especially for those of us who are older parents to be, it really is important to have the advantage of knowledge. I know that if we have a second we will not hesitate. I only wish this knowledge had been out there sooner for others to have made a truly informed decision. For us it was a needlessly stressful decision to get an amnio. We got one and all is fine and we got it by the doc who was first to offer it in the US in private practice. He was more than frustrated that for decades misinformation had ruled. And he was elated that finally, after years of doing battle, the truth is winning. Slowly. We'll be telling all our friends as I'm sure you will. Thanks

Sheri said...

Hi - I just found your blog.

Thank you for posting this about the amnio risk. I had an amnio 3 years ago with my daughter and was terrified by the risk. I go in next week for my amnio for baby #2. Hearing about this new researach is comforting.

Sheri