Doctors: Can you say something about the 'Fetus vs. Mother' scenario?

Question

From a strictly medical view: What are the situations in which the ONLY possibility to save the life of the mother is to sacrifice the fetus, and nothing other than that will do? And how common are these situations?

I would appreciate TOTAL objectiveness, since I am asking to know, not to get the answers I would like to see.

Answer 1

There are plenty of physical reasons, but I want to bring to your attention the psychological reasons to terminate pregnancy. Pregnancy can cause major psychological crisis in many women both during pregnancy and afterwards including severe depression, psychosis, suicidal/homicidal behavour, severe anxiety and even allow for an onset of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder in those predisposed to the illnesses especially if the pregnancy is unplanned or unwanted as this increases the anxiety in an already stressful situation. I think in these situations a termination of a potential is better than allowing for severe suffering of an already grown and existing person.

Answer 2

Eclampsia is one (and heck, I'm not even a doctor!) and depends on the time period in the pregnancy when it occurs. The medication and/or the condition causes stillbirth. The fetus is usually delivered whether ready or not. Eclampsia is the 2nd most common cause of death of pregnant women in the US (murder now surpasses it).
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=7883311&dopt=Abstract

ectopic pregnancy is another (2% of all pregnancies and increasing). This is a pregnancy in the fallopian tube or elsewhere in the body.

Certain cancers accelerate during pregnancy due to pregnancy hormones. Delaying treatment usually means the mother's death and often the death of the fetus as well. Had a co-worker that died at 6 months pregnancy because she chose to delay treatment rather than have an abortion. This isn't a common situation.


You don't actually think real doctors waste their time on yahoo answers, right?

Answer 3

Well, its really complicated, because alot has changed over time. I'm not really sure the medical term but the baby forms in the fallopian tube if that were to rupture it could kill the mama. But now people are making up alot of bogus reasons like not right timing or they cant sacrafice the time go figure right??? cant sacrifice you're time but you can sacrifice a child's life. and for the fallopian pregnancy its REALLY rare. I hope this helps you in some way!! Best wishes