By Brendan Rees
A Narre Warren mother who was told by doctors to abort her pregnancy has delivered birth to a healthy baby boy.
Racheal Chadwick says she is glad she went with “her instincts” not to terminate despite doctors repeated claims there was “something wrong” with her baby.
“With no evidence to support what the doctors were saying, there wasn’t really any other choice for me than to keep my baby and I am so glad that I did,” she said.
The 40-year-old gave birth to a nine pound one baby boy named Logan on 14 March at Monash Clayton Hospital.
“They took one look at him and decided that no testing needed to be done, and that he was a normal baby,” she said.
However, doctors told Ms Chadwick her baby had a one in three chance of having Down syndrome, a one in 14 chance of having trisomy 13, and a one in 200 chance of having trisomy 18, following a 12 week pregnancy scan.
In a further ultra sound, she was told her baby’s nuchal fold was 9mm. “The normal size is between 2.5mm and 3.5 mm,” Ms Chadwick said.
“I was given three options…one; to continue this pregnancy and see what happens, two; terminate now or three, have a CVS (chorionic villus sampling) test done,” she said.
“I discussed with my partner and we decided to have the testing done.”
Although the results came back normal doctors told her there was still “something wrong” with her baby after a 30 week ultrasound: “This time they told me his hands were deformed because he wouldn’t open them.”
But the mother of six refused to listen to doctors and went ahead with her pregnancy.
“Doctors are not always right. If I had of listened to them, I would have terminated a normal healthy baby for no other reason than the doctors not knowing what or if anything was wrong with him,” she said.
“I want others to be aware that doctors can be wrong, and people always, always need to go with their gut instinct.”
Earlier this year, Ms Chadwick celebrated five generations of the same family after her daughter Rhiannon of Cranbourne, gave birth to a baby boy.
