I’m new to nameberry, but I’m guessing this is the right forum for my question.
Before I start I would like to say that I am NOT expecting, I am a 17 year old from Australia and am doing an oral presentation on selective reduction in my English class.
I would like to know your opinion on Selective Reduction? Would you do it? What would your reasons for doing it/not doing it be? What if it is reducing twins to a single baby?
Especially in conjunction with IVF or similar fertility procedures. Whatever your stance is I would love to hear it! Also, if you have direct experience with Selective Reduction I would particularly like to know your thoughts, if you feel uncomfortable sharing on the thread maybe you could private message me? Also, please be truthful, I would love some valid information.
I know this procedure is quite controversial, but if you could please refrain from getting too heated that would be great. I don’t want to start any unnecessary arguments. By all means leave your opinion, but try to be tactful! I chose to ask this question here because from what I’ve read there is a great community of level-headed people on here, and that’s exactly what I’m looking for! I’ve asked it on other sites and been abused, hopefully that doesn’t happen here!
Oh and I did joined the site because I am a not so discrete name-nerd (I have been meaning to join for ages!!), but I thought I might get some helpful answers to this question.
I am not a mother, but I have no issue with it. Carrying triplets or more is risky, both for the mother and the fetuses. Reducing the pregnancy to a twin or single means there is a much higher chance of having full-term or near-term babies.
This is a very controversial topic, so I’d echo mim’s pleas to respect everyone’s opinions and refrain from getting too heated!
I think it’s a legitimate choice if you’re carrying more than one foetus. Personally, it’s something I would consider only if I was carrying at least four foetuses. I realise some people are morally against terminating any pregnancy, which is fine, it’s their choice (I’m pro choice in general). There are many factors to take into consideration, not just how many babies you want to have. As sidura mentioned, the health of the mother and the foetuses is at a much higher risk when carrying multiples. I hope I’m never in this situation, but if I were, I’d possibly choose selective reduction (impossible to say for sure, especially since I haven’t researched this issue nearly as much as I would if I were in this situation myself). Whatever your choice, I’m sure it would be an incredibly difficult decision.
Not a mother, but I could never do it. Besides my religious objections, which are first and foremost, my heart would always wonder about the baby I “selectively reduced”. It would haunt me for my whole life. I would never be able to look at the child(ren) who shared a womb with the other baby without wondering and I feel that is unfair both to me, my husband, and the children I chose to carry to term.
This is difficult, I’ve never really thought about it as it’s not anything I can imagine will happen to me. I don’t think I could say unless I was actually in that position myself, but I don’t think I would do it unless I carried more than three. I agree with Dindle, it would haunt me forever if I chose to terminate one or more, but I know I couldn’t live with it if I didn’t take some away and the babies were born with defects. I would’ve blamed myself forever, and for me it would be better to think of little babies lost than having alive ones with lots of problems. But that’s only my opinion. (I am a mother by the way.)
I’m very pro-choice, I believe every woman has the right to choose what’s best for her and not be judged for it.
I wouldn’t do it. [name]How[/name] could I, as a mother, possibly choose between my babies? The guilt would be with me forever, and I would always mourn the baby that would never be. I would feel selfish, as though I were choosing between my children, picking which ones I wanted to keep and which ones I didn’t.
I’m a religious Catholic and I believe that what’s meant to be, will be. If I get pregnant with twins, or triplets, or more, and they are born with defects as a result of me not terminating one or more of the babies, well that is the path that has been given to me. I will of course feel guilty about the quality of life my children will have as a result of this but I would hope they would understand that I couldn’t choose between them and their siblings. If having a disabled child is what is meant for me, then I will do my very best as a mother to love and care for that child as I would another.
Having said all this I would never judge another couple for choosing this option. It just simply isn’t the right option for me.
I’m also pro life but believe we should all be able to make our own decisions. I don’t agree with terminations personally but I agree that each woman should have the decision terminate a pregnancy if they wish, everyone should have the choice. It just wouldn’t be my choice, if that makes sense.
I’d also like to say that when using IVF especially, people should only implant the same number of embryos as what they’d be okay with birthing and raising. [name]Do[/name] not implant four or five embryos if you only want one baby.
Having been in the position of expecting and planning/budgeting for one and seeing at the first ultrasound that it was 2 I can understand what I shock it would be, even more so with 3, 4, +, but it never crossed my mind not to have both babies, and I don’t think it would have even had we seen 4 babies at the ultrasound. (which would have been an even bigger shock since we don’t have any twinning in our families, let alone quadruplets!)
I can see both sides. Instinctively I think it is a terrible thing to selectively reduce a pregnancy, but having gone through a twin pregnancy I have some insight into the extra demands on the mother’s body that multiples incur as well as the increased risks to the babies, and if after talking to her doctors a woman can’t carry multiples, I could understand her choice to reduce the number of embryos. I have joined various communities of parents of multiples and heard some heartbreaking stories about complications and have dramatic life-long effects that deeply change the lives of the families in to which these children are born. But I don’t think any one I have met, even in quite drastic cases, actually regrets not reducing the pregnancy. There is still so much joy and love in their lives.
I don’t think you can make a ‘right’ decision in this case. No mater what choice you make there is the potential for negative consequences. The only thing you can control is what the pp said: if you are having IVF, don’t implant more embryos than you are willing to birth and raise. (Not that all multiples are IVF, but that is the only way you have any semblance control.)
I am not a mother yet, but hoping to be one day soon. I could never selectively reduce if I had multiple babies in my womb. Echoing what some previous posters have mentioned, I would never be able to live with the guilt of that kind of choice. Although extremely difficult when put into reality, I believe that whatever will be, will be. While generally I’m a bit of a feminist, I don’t think this is an issue of women bring oppressed by not being given a choice about their own bodies. You are making a choice for another human being…choosing who lives and who dies. While I can’t imagine being in a situation where I find out I’m carrying quadruplets or something (that would be terrifying), I also struggle to imagine pointing at a screen and saying “remove that one and keep that one…”.
I am most likely going to be starting fertility drugs soon after a lot of tests and general infertility issues. These drugs do have a slightly increased chance of multiples. In the back of my mind, that possibility is there. Yet, I know going in that whatever life will eventually grow in me, I will protect and value from day one.
I am very pro-choice though would probably would never have chosen to abort a child myself.
But, I’ve never been pregnant and wouldn’t know what I would do when risks might out-weigh safety for more than one other human being.
(My god-mother had a clotting problem and thought she would never be able to have kids, for two years doctors said she could risk it but for whatever reason they insisted that she consider abortion should she become pregnant more than once or with multiples - they were fairly certain that not only herself but also the child/children would die. In fact she passed away from an embolism a few years ago.)
When we went through fertility treatments, we were warned and warned and warned again of the risks of carrying multiple fetuses. The clinic had a policy of not going through w. a scheduled IUI if multiple follicles were present, and also would not implant more than two embryos in an IVF procedure. If the babies then by some crazy chance split themselves into multiples greater than triplets, then clinic would selectively abort the “extra” babies. There is no way that someone could be surprised by this. They seriously made you sign multiple consent forms. They read these aloud to you, and then made you repeat back in your own words what the consent forms said.
The parents do not choose which baby to lose, the doctor just goes with either the least healthy appearing or the one easiest to get to. They made you sign papers agreeing to all of this in advance. This is a big part of the reason that we did not pursue these options, b.c we knew that we would not selectively abort any of our babies.
I am totally 100% for it. I think that a woman should have the right to decide whether or not she wants 1 kid, no kids, 5 kids, whatever. Personally, it would never be a decision I would have to make because I would never do IVF, ect. Whatever other people want to do is fine by me, but I do believe that things like fertility issues & homosexuality exist for a biological reason= to keep the population down and provide adults that will act as parents to parentless children. But I figure if someone really wants a biological child and they only want 1, can only afford 1, or for whatever medical reason could probably only manage to carry 1 to term, why not have an abortion? It’s their right.
I’ve not done much research about this, but it’s an interesting question. There are significant risks that come with carrying multiples, especially “higher order” multiples. Because of this, I think there should be some restrictions barring doctors from implanting more than …three? fetuses. I also think a woman should always be able to choose if she wants to terminate a pregnancy, or one third of a pregnancy, or half of it.
I had an abortion. I did it for medical reasons, but I don’t think one kind of abortion is more or less righteous than another kind. I am thankful that I had the option.
At this time, I don’t think I’d ever consider IVF. I think I could fall in love with the idea of adopting if we were unable to conceive. I probably wouldn’t opt to have more than two embryos implanted if we decided to go that route, so I can’t imagine selective reduction being an issue. Of course, I would want to have the choice.
@emmabobemma The thing with IVF is that because it is generally used mainly by older women (I mean no disrespect by this), they tend to implant quite a few embryos to give the mother the best chance of conceiving.
I know a woman who had 3 rounds of IVF. She had 5 embryos implanted each time, but it took until the 3rd attempt for the implantations to result in a successful pregnancy. [name]One[/name] embryo survived the 3rd time, resulting in the birth of one beautiful baby boy 9 months later.
Implanting only 3 embryos, especially with an older woman, can sometimes be foolish when the odds are slim enough to begin with and doctors want to give her the best chance possible of conceiving even just one baby.
That’s why they tend to implant 5-6-7 or more embryos.
I have never been faced with this issue myself. But I did do some research years ago out of curiosity when a friend of a friend got pregnant with quads and my friend was sharing her struggle with this issue, she faced significant pressure from her doctors to selectively reduce (although she was morally opposed to abortion previously). I think that in the end this discussion is not really different than any other discussion of abortion.
People who believe that life begins before birth and that a fetus is a person endowed by God with the same right to live as any other are generally going to be morally opposed to abortion for any reason (though many would make exceptions for rape or when the choice has to be made between the life of the fetus or the mother). From this perspective selective reduction hardly seems a compelling reason to consider abortion and certainly pales in comparison to the tragedy of pregnancy after rape, incest, and while the difficulty for the mother is a factor, it is hardly imminent when most selective reductions occur (nearly always during the first trimester and before any complications have ensued).
The flip side of the issue is people who believe that any woman’s decision to carry on with or end a pregnancy is a decision involves her body, personal health, well being (emotional and physical) not to mention career and future. From this perspective the decision to selectively reduce includes several compelling factors- statistically better outcomes (though I don’t think this is the case when reducing from 2 to 1), with the flip side of a risk to the remaining fetus(es), and [name]MAJOR[/name] lifestyle factors not the least of which is the cost.
In the case of the friend of a friend she was a stay at home mom on a tight budget so that she could stay home with her one child. She had been trying for 3 or 4 years for a second and was taking clomid (that’s it, no IVF- she was around 30 or 31). She didn’t live near any family. She faced the reality that it is likely that one person staying home cannot provide care for 4 newborns along with a preschooler, that unlike her first baby she could not nurse 4 babies for free (so add $$$ for formula), that her old cloth diaper stash wasn’t quite going to cover it (not to mention she was not going to have an extra minute to wash those cloth diapers). There was also the consideration that she wanted to be a stay at home mom and was philosophically inclined to believe that was the best thing for her children. She had to think about if caring for 4 newborns on her own was not feasible then she may have to go back to work full time in order to pay for childcare. She had to try and imagine bonding with 4 children. She had to think about how the influx of 4 babies would affect her son. It was an astronomical thing to consider. She kept her babies and her husband found a better job closer to her parents. They had family to help and hired a part time college student as a helper. All 4 babies were born healthy and she had no major complications. As far as I know that is still the case.
Pinkballerina: No offense taken. My opinion is not an educated one, just personal. I have an unsettling memory of the woman who gave birth to eight babies at once (“Octamom” they were calling the poor mother?) Yes, there are instances where implanting many fetuses is the only way someone can become pregnant. Who am I to say that such a woman shouldn’t have that option? I’m sure there are IVF doctors who are brilliant at determining how many fetuses to implant. It just seems to me that it’s really important to be prudent about it so the mother doesn’t have to face the choice to abort seven fetuses or take on a huge medical risk/ instant baby-boom. Ethically (to me) it’s such a finely-shaded area. What is necessary to achieve a pregnancy, what is too risky for mother or babies, what is abuse of technology by those seeking to profit from the desperation of people with fertility challenges, where do restrictions about how many fetuses to implant infringe on a woman’s rights over her body? Hm.
I know of almost no RE’s in the San Diego area that are comfortable transferring more than 3 embryos any more. In most cases, RE’s limit embryos to 2 per transfer. Thankfully, the field is growing and developing and evolving. The whole ethical code in this new field was an almost blank canvas not too long ago, but over the last decade, some common sense policies have beome the norm. The fact that we even have someone in our culture called the “Octomom” is evidence that there are still some very unethical Dr.'s out there, but that is BY FAR the exception.
Whenever I hear of a patient contemplating the number of embryos to transfer (sometimes women still think they want 3), we always talk about the potential need to selectively reduce. Once a woman really thinks about that reality, she almost always opts for 2 embryos. Even then, a woman carrying twins in her early 40’s is still high risk. Twins always sound like a good idea pre-transfer, but every 40+ year old mom in her 34th week (if she makes it that far) is absolutely miserable. Still two babies have a much better outcome than three, for both babies and mom.
I agree that I don’t think more than 3 embryos should be implanted, but spontaneous high-order multiples do happen (though rarely) and that wasn’t really the question.
I’m not a mother or planning to become one anytime soon, so my opinion may change if I have that experience, but for now: I would not selectively reduce, but I don’t think it’s morally wrong at all.
Multiple pregnancies can be extraordinarily dangerous for both mother & children. Not every multiple pregnancy ends in all babies surviving, and the more babies in there, the more dangerous it is for all involved. I think people hear about the healthy Gosselin sextuplets and octobabies and all these “miracle baby” stories about infants born prematurely, so they underestimate how incredibly dangerous pregnancy and premature birth can be. In some cases, it could be sacrificing one or more fetus to save the others and their mother. I’d never want to be in a situation where I have to make that kind of choice, and I would never criticize anyone who had to. There really isn’t a “right” choice, so every family should be able to make the decision they feel is best without fear of judgment.
Also as a note: I’m not religious, so that has nothing to do with my opinion.
@sdsurfmama beat me to it. Nowadays this is much, much less of an issue than it was a decade ago. IVF survival rates for individual embryos are much higher than prior and nearly all doctors will not implant more than 3 embryos at a time (many have limits on 2/cycle). There are always disreputable hacks (see the ‘God complex’ I was discussing before in re: many fertility specialists) who will indulge women with clear psychopathology like Octomom, but they are thankfully in the minority (and that particular person lost his [name]California[/name] medical license).
And as someone else said, if a couple is in that situation they do not personally select which embryo/fetus is terminated. It’s still a “[name]Sophie[/name]'s Choice” situation, but usually the smallest or most external fetus is the one selected by the doctor.