What do you know about Down Syndrome? Do you know someone with Down Syndrome?

Sixteen years ago I didn’t know much about Down Syndrome. I had numerous thoughts of what it might be. Over the years I had met a few people with Down Syndrome but that was about all. I have learned so much and I think the world is more aware now that it has been previously but there is still so much to know. Loving and living with someone with Down Syndrome, you learn quite a bit.

Here are some facts about Down Syndrome:

• Down syndrome occurs when an individual has a full or partial extra copy of chromosome 21. This additional genetic material alters the course of development and causes the characteristics associated with Down syndrome
• There are three types of Down syndrome: trisomy 21 (nondisjunction) accounts for 95% of cases, translocation accounts for about 4%, and mosaicism accounts for about 1%
• Down syndrome is the most commonly occurring chromosomal condition. Approximately one in every 700 babies in the United States is born with Down syndrome – about 6,000 each year
• Down syndrome occurs in people of all races and economic levels
• The incidence of births of children with Down syndrome increases with the age of the mother. But due to higher fertility rates in younger women, 80% of children with Down syndrome are born to women under 35 years of age

Above facts copied from NDSS.

There were comments from the doctors when I was pregnant. The blood test came back indicating that there was a chance that the baby had Down Syndrome. That combined with my age were causing the doctor to push for further testing. We decided not to do further testing as it would not change things. We believe that each life is precious and life begins at conception.

Do you know that there are countries that are working to eliminate Down Syndrome?

In Iceland as a result of prenatal screening tests close to 100% of those who received positive results for Down Syndrome terminated their pregnancy.

Denmark has a termination rate of 98 percent. The United States has a termination rate of 67 percent.

Does that make you sad? It makes me sad.

A newspaper article in Taiwan in 2013 described how number of live births with Down Syndrome have decreased as a result of prenatal screening tests. Also the article adds this, “A research team led by attending physician of obstetrics at National Taiwan University Hospital (NTUH) Lee Chien-an found that there is a positive impact of Down syndrome screening on Taiwanese births.”

The Taiwan article made me realize just how little the world values life. They viewed the decrease in live births as positive.

Miss K was born in Taiwan just 9 years before this article was written. She was in the NICU in a Taiwanese hospital and needed open heart surgery to survive. I do remember wondering if they would do the surgery as she the chromsome test had just come back confirming that she had Down Syndrome. Would they be willing to do heart surgery, spend all that time, money for a baby with Down Syndrome? Thankfully they did and there was no discussion about not doing surgery.

As Christians what do we believe?

I mentioned that we would not terminate based on the test results. Why? We believe every life is created by God and valuable to God. We believe that we are made in God’s image (Genesis 1:26). More on what it means to be made in God’s image in future posts.

We also believe that God formed each of us. “For you formed my inward parts; you knitteed me together in my mother’s womb.” (Psalm 139:13). He put all the cells and chromsomes together and knew that for Miss K is was an extra 21st choromosome.

With that basis we need to value life no matter what the chromosome count.

We need to life valuing each person. No matter the ability or disability we need to show worth and value to them. We value people by including them, by caring for them, by learning from them and so many ways.

Do you know someone with Down Syndrome?