Here is what set me off and my response! This was posted on a FB page called I Am A Nurse. which should be immediately changed to I am an ignorant idiot... just saying
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| Down's Syndrome devastating effects affects almost every system. The following picture shows just but a few areas that are normally hit hard. Please share on your timeline |
And my response:
EXCUSE ME WHILE I CLARIFY THIS BULLSHIT. THIS IS GOING TO BE LONG!
1,GROWTH FAILURE,MENTAL RETARDATION: My child is 4 and has yet to fail to grow. I suppose technically she is mentally retarded but the rest of the free world now uses intellectual challenges, or genius in the making.Guess the medical profession didn't get the memo on that one. 2,FLAT BACK OF HEAD: Some of our sweeties have a little flat look going on but so did the guy i saw last night. Wonder what his "problem" was. 3,MANY LOOPS ON FINGERS AND PALM CREASE. I don't know what the hell the loops could possibly be, and have you checked out you palm lately? Odds are you have creases.. better get that checked you may have Down syndrome too. 4, SPECIAL SKIN RIDGE PATTERNS, Too stupid to address. 5,ABSENCE OF A RIB, Never heard this one. Guess it could happen. Hey, wasn't Adam missing a rib? maybe he had DS too! 6,INTESTINAL BLOCKAGE, An absolute possibility. Also very treatable and appears in typical children too. 7,UMBILICAL HERNIA, yup,so what. 8, ABNORMAL PELVIS, In a radiological study of the pelvis in 66 adult subjects with Down's syndrome, 25 (38%) were found to have the classical pelvic shape associated with Down's syndrome in infancy and childhood. The appearance of the pelvis and hip joints was very variable and matched the variety of appearances seen in normal subjects, except that generally the pelvis was smaller than normal. The discriminating value of the iliac index (which is abnormal in up to 80% of affected infants) was lost in this group of affected adults. Subluxation and osteoarthrosis of the hips were very uncommon features. In addition to the primary morphological abnormalities in the pelvis in Down's syndrome that are described in the literature, posture probably plays a part in producing the variable radiological appearances of the pelvis. No I'm not a smarty pants I got that info here. And i really can't say I agree with you that this is devastating.http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0009926080801991?via=sd&cc=y 9,DIMINISHED MUSCLE TONE, Definitely seen across the board, in people with DS. But did you know muscle tone does not determine strength. So my daughter who is as strong as a horse will never have a six pack.. neither will I. Again not devastating. 10, BROAD FLAT FACE, SLANTING EYES, ETC..Some facial features are definitely unique to DS. I personally love them all. Especially the slanting eyes that look like beautiful almonds. They are exquisite. 11, SHORT AND BROAD HANDS... devastating?? Really? 12, BIG WRINKLED TONGUE , Just wondering how many people with DS have let you that close to examine their tongues. Also wondering if you've ever actually met anyone with DS. Gotta say.. NO, to the big wrinkled tongue. That's just weird. 13, DENTAL ANOMALIES, I believe every child with braces qualifies as a dental anomaly. You're funny. 14. CONGENITAL HEART DISEASE, YES!!! Finally you got one!!! CHD is devastating!!! But guess what, it's a crap shoot. No guarantee your typically developing child won't be born with CHD. 35,000 infants are born with CHD. That's 1/125 . 1/691 are born with DS. The odds are in your favor for having a child born with CHD. 15, ENLARGED COLON, Some children with DS do experience gastrointestinal problems, so do typical kids, and they can be treated. Again not devastating. And my absolute favorite # 16, BIG TOES, WIDELY SPACED. This is also referred to as the flip flop toes. Perfectly made for flip flops. And one of the cutest qualities of DS. Please educate yourself before you put crap like this up on your wall. Women who are pregnant and receive a diagnosis of DS for their baby are scared and confused. Stupidity like this is all they are bombarded with. DS is not devastating. Yes some children are born with medical conditions and yes some are serious. But ANY child can be born with any of these conditions. And the odds of a child being born with all of them is unheard of. More than one sure, but not all of these "devastating effects". You are not helping anyone with this. If anything you are making things worse. And BTW, it's Down syndrome not Down's syndrome.
1,GROWTH FAILURE,MENTAL RETARDATION: My child is 4 and has yet to fail to grow. I suppose technically she is mentally retarded but the rest of the free world now uses intellectual challenges, or genius in the making.Guess the medical profession didn't get the memo on that one. 2,FLAT BACK OF HEAD: Some of our sweeties have a little flat look going on but so did the guy i saw last night. Wonder what his "problem" was. 3,MANY LOOPS ON FINGERS AND PALM CREASE. I don't know what the hell the loops could possibly be, and have you checked out you palm lately? Odds are you have creases.. better get that checked you may have Down syndrome too. 4, SPECIAL SKIN RIDGE PATTERNS, Too stupid to address. 5,ABSENCE OF A RIB, Never heard this one. Guess it could happen. Hey, wasn't Adam missing a rib? maybe he had DS too! 6,INTESTINAL BLOCKAGE, An absolute possibility. Also very treatable and appears in typical children too. 7,UMBILICAL HERNIA, yup,so what. 8, ABNORMAL PELVIS, In a radiological study of the pelvis in 66 adult subjects with Down's syndrome, 25 (38%) were found to have the classical pelvic shape associated with Down's syndrome in infancy and childhood. The appearance of the pelvis and hip joints was very variable and matched the variety of appearances seen in normal subjects, except that generally the pelvis was smaller than normal. The discriminating value of the iliac index (which is abnormal in up to 80% of affected infants) was lost in this group of affected adults. Subluxation and osteoarthrosis of the hips were very uncommon features. In addition to the primary morphological abnormalities in the pelvis in Down's syndrome that are described in the literature, posture probably plays a part in producing the variable radiological appearances of the pelvis. No I'm not a smarty pants I got that info here. And i really can't say I agree with you that this is devastating.http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0009926080801991?via=sd&cc=y 9,DIMINISHED MUSCLE TONE, Definitely seen across the board, in people with DS. But did you know muscle tone does not determine strength. So my daughter who is as strong as a horse will never have a six pack.. neither will I. Again not devastating. 10, BROAD FLAT FACE, SLANTING EYES, ETC..Some facial features are definitely unique to DS. I personally love them all. Especially the slanting eyes that look like beautiful almonds. They are exquisite. 11, SHORT AND BROAD HANDS... devastating?? Really? 12, BIG WRINKLED TONGUE , Just wondering how many people with DS have let you that close to examine their tongues. Also wondering if you've ever actually met anyone with DS. Gotta say.. NO, to the big wrinkled tongue. That's just weird. 13, DENTAL ANOMALIES, I believe every child with braces qualifies as a dental anomaly. You're funny. 14. CONGENITAL HEART DISEASE, YES!!! Finally you got one!!! CHD is devastating!!! But guess what, it's a crap shoot. No guarantee your typically developing child won't be born with CHD. 35,000 infants are born with CHD. That's 1/125 . 1/691 are born with DS. The odds are in your favor for having a child born with CHD. 15, ENLARGED COLON, Some children with DS do experience gastrointestinal problems, so do typical kids, and they can be treated. Again not devastating. And my absolute favorite # 16, BIG TOES, WIDELY SPACED. This is also referred to as the flip flop toes. Perfectly made for flip flops. And one of the cutest qualities of DS. Please educate yourself before you put crap like this up on your wall. Women who are pregnant and receive a diagnosis of DS for their baby are scared and confused. Stupidity like this is all they are bombarded with. DS is not devastating. Yes some children are born with medical conditions and yes some are serious. But ANY child can be born with any of these conditions. And the odds of a child being born with all of them is unheard of. More than one sure, but not all of these "devastating effects". You are not helping anyone with this. If anything you are making things worse. And BTW, it's Down syndrome not Down's syndrome.
The only reason I'm reposting this here on my blog is because this page has a gazillion "likes". I don't even want to think about how many people saw this and believed it. What if a pregnant woman saw this and because of it decided to have an abortion. This is trash, and it's not true! The words "devastating affects" are used to describe flip flop toes for God's sake! Seriously???
Our kids are amazing in every way!Down syndrome is not devastating! People need to educate themselves before they try to educate others about things they do not understand!
This picture captures her flip flop toes , her dental anomalies, her slanted eyes.
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| Here you can see her devastating , short and broad hands(hehe) Along with her smiley face pinky. She's mastered her little short hands pretty well, since she used them to pull out about 80 wipes in the blink of an eye. |
I hope I have taken the "devastation" out of Down syndrome, because this little girl is anything and everything but, devastating!
that facebook poster can suck it! I laughed at a few of your responses, very witty
ReplyDeletethe big/large tongue thing is actually a myth. there are still some doctors who perpetuate it. it was thought that tongue protrusion was caused by people with Ds having tongues too big for their mouth. turns out they had a normal sized tongue, and low muscle tone causing their tongue to protrude from their mouth. this is also treatable by doing exercises where you have them copy what you are doing with your tongue, and where you grab their tongue if it's hanging out and squeeze and pull (causing the muscle to retract).
ReplyDeletethe most devastating part about having a child with Down syndrome, constantly having to validate that she has worth, our lives aren't that hard, and that she isn't suffering (although she might tell you otherwise since i won't let her play with electric cords like she really wants to).
...oh yeah, and i just looked, apparently my tongue is also wrinkled. i will discuss this anomaly with my doctor.
ReplyDeleteThis was your fb reply also? Please tell me I read that correctly! That post was ugly! Y
ReplyDeleteYours, well it was perfectly awesome! Sometimes shooting first isn't always a bad thing! Carry on Momma Bear!!
In regards to Down syndrome / Down's Syndrome, in this country (UK) it's always referred to as Down's Syndrome. I know in the US it seems to be Down syndrome. Don't think that makes a huge difference, still the same thing.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I definitely agree with you on all the other points - sounds like they're trying to get a perfect child in appearance and anything else would be "devastating"! Very few of us look like supermodels anyway so that's really no big deal - crazy!
As far as mental retardation goes, I'll also say I have personally found people with special needs to have that special innocence, found special needs teens to still have the manners they were brought up with. In comparison to those shouting, swearing, etc, honestly I can see why for so many of you it's a great blessing! You have a beautiful daughter and I know she can do great things!
Blessings,
E x
Thank you Emma :) And i have to say i usually really do not really care if someone says Down or Down's, although here in America is always without exception,Down. We have bigger fish to fry when advocating for our kids and if someone slips, no big deal. But, the reason this person was corrected was because she is ignorant and wrong about everything and could not even get the name right. She needed correcting.
ReplyDeleteAmen Steph!
ReplyDeletelove, love, love your come back and yes, this person needs to be corrected but of course they probably dont give a damn....and thats what is wrong with our society
great photo with the wipes...and as far as the tongue, so many people dont understand low muscle tone effects every aspect of a child's body from resp. to fine motor and tongue placement, etc.
I'm so thankful for mamas like you who are fighters for their kids! I wish we had more of them in Russia. Keep praying for them to rise up.
ReplyDeleteLove you, that is all, carry on advocating! Smooch!
ReplyDeletePlease tell me you posted this all on her wall. I just love you Steph! Thanks for setting things straight.
ReplyDeleteHA! Jeana, I didn't but maybe i should head over there now...
ReplyDelete