Ds awareness day #2

Did you know?

The occurrence of Down syndrome is universal across racial and gender lines, and it is present in about 1 in 800 births in Canada.

That's probably a little bit more common than you thought huh? Definitely more common than I ever thought.

When I found out that Ola had Ds, I was very concerned as to why the testing that I had done didn't show that she would have it. I had the triple screening done and it didn't give a statistical number that would alert my OB. I came to find out weeks after Ola was born that for my age (31) my chances of having a child born with Ds would be about 1 in 815. The numbers that came back to my OB were 1 in 800. There was no reason to look into it because I was at the right number for my age. My OB doesn't get concerned with the number unless it comes back as a 250 or less.

Really I think what this boils down to is that the triple screen test is just that...a screen. It doesn't give you a definitive answer it just gives you an "idea." From what I understand there are a lot of false positives with the triple screen. I know a woman that was given a 1 in 4 chance that her child would have Ds and he didn't. Ola was the first false negative that my OB has ever dealt with. Poor woman, we must have really surprised her!

The other thing that I didn't know was that a woman of any age can give birth to a child with Ds. I always thought that it was "older" ladies that did. Now I do not classify myself with the "older" ladies so it must be true ;) Every age has a statistic, and every woman's eggs are different.

So what this all boils down to is that I really should have gotten Mark to pick up a lottery ticket on the morning that I was induced. We won the Ds lottery and I only had a 1 in 800 chance! I wonder what the odds were for the million that day :)

Information was taken from the Canadian Down syndrome society's website. As with anything, please visit reputable sites for accurate information.