Antenatal Results and Choices

My mum told me about this interesting program on the subject of antenatal screening on Woman's Hour on BBC Radio 4. They are introducing new guidance on the screening process in the UK and this program explores the issues in quite an interesting way - it's from a medical standpoint, not a specifically pro-Down syndrome standpoint, but I think it's interesting to see that way that the subject is handled by the mainstream media in Britain.

In the UK there is a charity set up to help people make decisions when they are given a pre-birth diagnosis of an 'abnormality': ARC - Antenatal Results and Choices. It's a non-judgemental system that helps people understand what their choices are, and links them to the support groups that can give them more information. That's in the best case scenario - I, personally, doubt that it's what usually happens.
On the program they are also talking about giving more information about these choices before people get pregnant - with case studies and information available on the internet and through the health service. This makes a lot of sense - trying to think about Down syndrome for the first time when you are being told that you are 'high risk' and you have loads of hormones floating about your system isn't the best time to take in complicated information.

Ps. Please excuse the photo - as this is such a dry post, I thought I'd choose a picture that would spice it up a bit - this is me the day before Alfie was born. ooooh.