Originally posted by M©+square:
You said. They dont need[b] a lot of needles
or treatment or therapy
I asked back
ARE YOU SURE!!!!!?????
So what's your answer?
Sure or not sure?[/b]
It's down to what you understand by 'a lot' or 'common'. Take
congenital heart disease as example, because Down syndrome is the
most common cause of syndromic congenital cardiac disease.
About 40% of patients with Down's syndrome have congenital heart
disease of some sort. One study showed that the birth prevalence of
congenital heart disease was 8.8/1000 live births (n = 231). Of
these, 9% had recognised chromosomal anomalies 0.80/1000 live
births, mainly due to Down's syndrome. (Int J Cardiol. 1999 Feb
28;68(2):151-6.)
In other words, the majority of children with Down's syndrome do
not have congenital heart disease and that holds true of other
congenital abnormalities as well (the risk of mental retardation is
more than 95% by comparison), although as a group, the risk is much
higher than that in the general population.
The most common form of congenital heart disease in Down's syndrome
is an isolated ventricular septum, which is easily corrected by a
single operation in most cases. If the need for treatment and
needles is the criterion for deciding whether or not to abort a
baby, then those with thalassaemia (a common blood disease
requiring monthly transfusions) should be aborted.
