Opinion/Feedback

Our unit has been providing antenatal consultations for 30 years following the discovery of limb malformation with the fetus.

Each of these consultations is specific and carried out by a multi-professional team. It requires a physical and rehabilitation doctor, an orthopedic surgeon, an occupational therapist for upper limb malformation, a physiotherapist for lower malformation and a psychologist.

This multidisciplinary consultation is unique because of each pregnancy story, because of each patient life story but also because of the words used by the sonologist when announcing the diagnosis.

We deal with couples shocked by the prenatal diagnosis. We help them get acceptance of the child to be born and to forget about their imaginary child.

Medical information is often perceived as being “a surfeit of information” difficult to handle by the couple stunned by the overwhelming diagnosis.

We must stress that it is critical to not only have a good medical description of the malformations and potential treatments but also a good psychological support (parents personal life story, self-defense mechanism, guilt feeling).

The ethical aspect of this consultation is also important. Team members must be as neutral as possible in their assessments in order to let the couple take the final decision: the continuation of the pregnancy or a request of voluntary termination of pregnancy.

These prenatal consultations highlight the importance of the multidisciplinary global care.