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Informative Speech On Down Syndrome

Decent Essays

Good morning/afternoon aspiring doctors. Bob and Betty are willing to start a family after achieving much success in their careers. Betty has conceived naturally, however, she is in her 40’s and is concerned about the risks her child faces due to her age.
There are many risks associated with parental-age; including the increased likelihood of being pregnant with multiples, high blood pressure, hypertension and gestational diabetes. Consequently, these risks can cause the premature delivery of a baby with a low-birth weight (The American College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists 2015; March of Dimes 2017; Evidence Based Birth 2017). Women aged 40 are also susceptible to have a 51% chance of a spontaneous miscarriage and are two and-a-half times as likely to have a stillborn baby (Birth Injury Justice.org 2017); compared to a 22 year old with 8.7% (Birth Injury Justice.org 2017; Evidence Based Birth 2017). The miscarriage rates are higher in older women as they occur within the half of the first trimester due to genetic problems including Down syndrome; as 1 in 53 at the age of 40 have a baby with a genetic disorder, compared to 1 in 1064 at 25 (Evidence Based Birth 2017).
The increased risk of Down syndrome in 40 year old women is believed to be caused by errors which can crop up in the eggs’ genetic material as they age (Down-Syndrome Screening: A One-parent test for a Two-parent; The Atlantic 2017). Normally, there are 46 chromosomes in a cell; 23 from the egg and the

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