Opt for foetal surgeries over pregnancy termination: Experts

New Delhi : Couples should opt for foetal surgeries over pregnancy termination in cases of complexities, experts said.

"The problem in our country is that we terminate pregnancy very easily. There is a need to educate the obstetrician that if they see a problem and cannot understand it the solution is not necessarily to terminate the baby," said Dr Anita Kaul, senior consultant at Apollo Centre for Foetal Medicine.

"Foetal surgery is a complex surgical procedure to correct abnormalities in the womb like placenta complications in twins which compromises life of one twin. Scientific advances in the last 20 years have raised the hope that many pregnancy complications are potentially detectable from as early as the 12th week of gestation. These surgeries are better than termination of the pregnancy altogether," she added.

An estimated 487,000 babies are born with birth defects in India and out of these 720 per year are in Delhi. 3 out of 200 babies are diagnosed with some form of abnormalities everyday.

According to experts, issues like minimal knowledge of foetal care and the spurt of IVF clinics leading to an increase in mono pregnancy with fatal repercussions for the foetus were addressed.

The Apollo Centre celebrated its 10th anniversary and conducted a series of programmes for raising awareness regarding the health and wellness of foetuses in the country.

"IVF clinics have become prevalent and instead of putting one egg these clinics insert several eggs. This leads to mono pregnancy. The problem with mono pregnancy is that one of the twins is so small that it doesn't survive and its death affects the other twin severely," Kaul said.