Down's Syndrome Babies- Unsdorf

amother

Orange

Wed, Apr 15 2015, 4:37 am

I live in Unsdorf.

The down syndrome kids here are actually the rock stars!! They are so friendly and the neighborhood loves them. You will see one who calls himself the "mayor". They are never hidden and always out playing and are very well loved and welcomed by the neighborhood. Off the top of my mind I can think of 4 downs kids here. 2 of whom are actually young mothers. In Israel especially it is NOT hidden at all. They are very into making the independent. There are amazing integration systems here.

In terms of abortion, I wouldn't know who does abortions-but I don't think it is done so quickly for downs. 2 of my friends (actually in USA) were told to abort because will be downs and they both didn't and they both had perfectly healthy babies. It's often you hear those stories with good endings!

Also one last thing-Unsdorf is not like Meah Shearim. It's like saying "all black people look the same". They don't if you know some and care for some. We had a wonderful African American woman care for our Grandmother, another for my aunt..they are all people with a whole life to them. There are also so many Americans in Unsdorf. The dress is different, the schools are different....

amother

Orange

Wed, Apr 15 2015, 7:46 am

There are major differences in the two and to just say "all chareidem are the same" is mean IMHO. I would never say "oh they're mizrachi and they are all the same". I am close to some mizrachim. Some I would eat by and some I wouldn't and some I would feel comfortable in the same schools with and some I wouldn't.
Meah Shearim they do not wear shaitels for the most part, wear shauls or jackets over their clothing, walk separately in the street....
Unsdorf-most women wear shaitels. You will even see the very long ones. Over Pesach a ot young Americans are not there so it is very quiet and don't see the stylish ones. BUt it is probably half young -even wealthy Americans that populate Unsdorf. A woman from Unsdorf would probably get "stoned" in Meah SHearim.

black sheep

Wed, Apr 15 2015, 11:25 am

you want to know if chareidim have a higher incidence of Downs Syndrom than the general population? I have heard this question before, and I don't know why, but it really bothers me. well actually the question doesn't bother me, the hypothetical answers bother me. people start saying, "probably, because they have children at an older age; probably, because they don't abort; probably, because they are different so we will believe anything about them." nobody says, "I have no idea about the rates of Downs in the chareidi community compared to the rates in the general population because no one ever compared them by the numbers, in a real statistical analysis." I have heard from therapists that they see more Downs in the chareidi community, but of course they do, because they aren't therapists for healthy developmentally appropriate children! and they don't see a large enough number of children in both communities to determine rates.

has anyone here done a study with real numbers comparing the rates? because unless you did a real comparison, based on a large enough segment for it to be true, please don't make assumptions based on hypothetical theories.

2ringsnow

Wed, Apr 15 2015, 11:42 am

First of all the title is offensive , it's not down syndrome babies , the correct term is babies/children with Down syndrome. The disability does not define them, they are ppl with a disability.
Just had to get that off my chest...
Second , the statistics of older women having a bigger chance of having children with down syndrome is not very accurate, I was 20 when I gave birth to my daughter.
The reason why therapist say they see more in chareidi communities is because most chareidi ppl wouldn't dream of aborting a child with ds, while in the General population, most ppl who get a prenatal diagnosis do abort.

mazal555

Wed, Apr 15 2015, 11:52 am

After 35, a woman's risk of conceiving a child with down's is 1 in 350. As many as 70% of normal pregnancies end in miscarriage, but 30% of pregnancies that survive past 6 weeks, so maybe some of these down's pregnancies aren't counted. But let's say that 30% of those pregnancies will end in miscarriage, which is conservative because women over 35 are also more likely to miscarry. So roughly 7 out of every 3,500 children born to women over 35 would have down's syndrome, but that is probably a high number anyway because as we said before, women over 35 are more likely to miscarry anyway.

So if a woman keeps having children over 35, she might have as many as 3 children after 35. But that is probably high. But let's say it's average. So out of every roughly 1,160 women who keep having children over 35, 1 would have a child with down's syndrome.

So you would need a pretty large town before you would expect to have 1 child in that town with down's syndrome, statistically.

Stop me if my math is faulty.

dancingqueen

Wed, Apr 15 2015, 12:34 pm

amother wrote:

I think we do have a higher rate 1. Because of age 2. Because less abortion. But alot of pple do send their downs baby's away since they have large families to take care of .

I think this is what op is wondering and what I had heard too about chareidi communities especially since it would be a stigma for shidduchim. However, it's nice to read that that stigma is disappearing at least in Israel.

LOL at the post above me.

MagentaYenta

Wed, Apr 15 2015, 12:50 pm

[/quote]
What your describing is a community that hosts special needs pple, Are they all children of pple that live in your community?
No Unsdorf doesn't have a special needs community but I'm sure there are special needs kids there like every other place.[/quote]

Yes they are all children of residents. (They have to be to receive services.) Folks move here because of the high level of services we have for special needs individuals.

black sheep

Wed, Apr 15 2015, 12:51 pm

mazal555 wrote:

your conclusion does not take into effect all the babies with downs syndrome born to women under 35.

80% of Downs Syndrome cases occurs in mothers under 35.

1 in about 800 overall births is a baby with Downs Syndrome.

morah

Wed, Apr 15 2015, 1:07 pm

A lot of misunderstanding of how statistics works here. First off, a chance of X is NOT a guarantee in either direction. If there is a high chance of X occurring, it doesn't mean it must occur, and likewise a low chance of X doesn't mean it cannot happen. So to the poster who had a DS child at 20, that doesn't mean the statistics are inaccurate, it means that you happened to fall into the tiny-but-not-zero percentage of 20 years olds who give birth to DS babies.
This also illustrates that statistics only matter in large numbers and not really on the small scale. The stats can tell you your odds, but you're still an individual (or one individual community) and there will always be a chance of being either a complete anomaly, or just other confounding factors skewing things differently than you'd expect. Like, maybe people with SN kids are just more likely to go away for Pesach because having a SN child is, for most families, very time-consuming and stressful, so you didn't see anyone because they were all away. Or maybe the community just happens, for whatever reason, to defy the odds.
I do believe that the more children you have, the more likely it is that some "issue" will crop up. Every child is a roll of the dice on all sorts of things, and each time you roll the dice, the odds are great that you will get all sorts of different combinations. So, the more times you roll, the more chance there is that you won't keep getting the same roll. Most very large families I know have dealt with at least one child who required some extra attention for some reason- whether due to a minor health issue, or mild learning issue, or need EI services as a small child, or more significant and complex needs including severe physical or intellectual disabilities. Admittedly, this is anecdotal, but it does make sense that the more children you have, the more likely that some new variable is going to come up somewhere. But honestly, I do think it's a bizarre and quite the leap to just assume chareidi communities MUST equal oodles of SN kids walking around. Maybe frum orgs that deal with SN kids need to exhibit a little more diversity in their promotional materials; confirmation bias is real too!

ora_43

Wed, Apr 15 2015, 1:17 pm

mazal555 wrote:

I don't think you need to take miscarriages into account, unless you're saying a fetus with downs syndrome is less likely to (naturally) be a live birth. Although children born with down's are more likely to have fatal heart problems, so maybe that should be in the equation.

Even if it weren't, you'd have an average of 10 children with down's syndrome for each 3,500 born to a woman older than 35. And more children were born to younger mothers, which would mean overall ratio is smaller. IOW it wouldn't be at all unlikely to see a thousand kids or so without seeing any with down's.

It also wouldn't be unlikely to see 1,000 kids and not notice that some of them do have down's syndrome. If you're actually seeing 1,000 children in a single day, you're probably not looking at all of them that closely. And it's not always obvious from a person's face alone, the down's "look" is only an average look and not what every single person with down's looks like.

Chayalle

Wed, Apr 15 2015, 2:58 pm

amother wrote:

OP here.

But Down's is often (though of course not always) impacted by the mother's age at the time of conception. If women are having children into their late 30's, and assuming that they do not abort- then I'd assume that this particular community would have a high rate of Down's.

Now, it could be that I just did not see the special needs children- its not like I was knocking on doors looking for them. Maybe I just missed it entirely. Or maybe if most girls get married at 18, they are having children only from 18 to 35- its very doable to have a large family in that time span. I'm just curious, and I did not feel comfortable asking my hostess. Do Charedi families have high incidences of Down's? Is that a 'thing'?

Yeah but look at the percentages. It's not like it's such high percentages, so you wouldn't necessarily see a high number of DS children in a neighborhood. Unsdorf is not a city or town - it's just a neighborhood.

And yeah, just because you didn't see them doesn't mean there aren't any. Maybe they were tired from the Yom Tov and were taking a nap.

I think the assumption is flawed.

My mother had my youngest sister at age 42 and she was B"H healthy. Last year my sister had my B"H healthy nephew at the same age. I know quite a few women who had healthy children into their 40's - and much fewer who had children with DS. Personally, I'm close to 40 and I'd have a baby in a hearbeat if I could, and I wouldn't worry about DS.

amother

Orange

Wed, Apr 15 2015, 5:06 pm

Delores wrote:

Oh so now if a woman wears a long wig it automatically means she smokes weed? How judgemental!!

LOL!! Didn't even get how u got here but then I saw another comment on it....
I am the woman from Unsdorf and wear a long wig but get such stares in the side streets of Meah Shearim!! Yes I meant stoned as in "skilah" or at least called shiksa....not judging them, its' my perception. I actually really liked the Meah shearim ladies in my diet group and never got called shiksa....