Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
from feeling happiness and confi dence as pregnant women. For some, such
negative experiences loomed large even after the healthy baby was born.
Again, the women who tried to think 'positively' argued that the way
the risk assessment made you think about parenthood and what parenthood
can bring was a good thing. We will continue to follow Cecilia. In the fi rst
interview, she talks about the benefi t of the ultrasound screening:
CECILIA:
Somehow, I feel that if you have had the benefi t of having this
examination (the ultrasound scan) you should draw on it and go all the
way, I think I feel that strongly, because otherwise there is no point in
knowing that the risk for me is 1 to 227, but of course you can have
different opinions, and I know that some people think it is awful to
have an invasive test to somehow sort out if the baby is healthy or has
a chromosomal abnormality, but Henrik and me, we think it is good to
have that information and to be prepared (Interview 1).
There has to be a point in having the risk information, and one point is
to make you, as a parent, prepared for whatever the future will bring. After
the invasive test and confi rmation of normality, she continues along the same
line of argument. She is pleased that she was confronted with the 'more
serious part' of being an expecting mother:
CECILIA:
I think I would have lived in a 'tutti-frutti' world if I had not gone
through this process (laughter) (…) there was more of a serious part, and
I am still happy about that, now afterwards, I am happy that I had that
period and realized that the responsibility, that parenthood will always
demand something from you, that you can't just carry on and think that
everything is fi ne (Interview 2).
Cecilia also thinks she is a more happy mother now, as compared with if
she had not gone through the examination. She is happy that she had this
experience, she learnt that 'a lot can happen in pregnancy' and also that you
cannot take anything for granted. In the last interview she says:
CECILIA:
I think I am more grateful for her being so fi ne. It is possible, but
diffi cult to tell, it is possible that I would have been grateful even if I had
not gone through this thing with the high risk group and those things,
but I think it made us think about what life is and that you cannot take
anything for granted (Interview 3).
She concludes that it was something positive to have had the ultrasound
screening, even though she was still frustrated about not having understood
more when she received the results, what it actually means to belong to a risk
group. Also some of the parents that defi nitely thought that the baby was ill
or not normal argued that it was a good thing to have the early information
