Reproductive and marital experience of parents of children with Down's syndrome (mongolism)

The Epidemiological Study of Mongolism in Baltimore*

“…The cases and controls were compared with regard to several other variables, including residential history,2 religion,3 and educational background. 3 No statistically significant differences between the two groups were observed in these factors.…”

The Fertility of Mothers of Mongols

“…On the other hand, Lunn (1959) found no significant difference in the abortion rate between mothers of mongols and controls in Glasgow. Sigler, et al (1967) also found no significant difference in the abortion rate between the mothers of mongols (14.2 per cent before the index birth; 14.8 per cent afterwards) and a control group (12.2 per cent before the index birth; 15.4 per cent afterwards).…”

“…A relatively large proportion of autosomal trisomies in spontaneous abortions apparently involve a chromosome of the G group, and it has been suggested that the mother's age may influence the rejection of G-trisomic embryos (Polani, 1966). Controlled studies of the pattern of fertility in the mothers of mongol children have been few; but generally speaking later work (Smith and Record, 1955;Lunn, 1959;Sigler, et al, 1967) reports findings which suggest that the previously widely held view, that the fertility of the mothers of mongols is impaired, should be questioned more closely. It does seem to be well established that the majority of such mothers, perhaps mainly that group which have produced the mongol child at an advanced maternal age (Cowie and Slater, 1963), have more than the expected number of miscarriages; but, obviously, this may have only the slightest or no infiuence on the total number of children born alive in the course of a reproductive lifetime.…”

“…This is high in comparison with flndings in a previously studied group of mothers of mongols, in whom only 2 out of 55 gave a history of irregular periods (Coppen and Cowie, 1960). Sigler, et al (1967) found no differences between a group of 216 mothers of mongols and a control group with respect to menstrual irregularities, but they found that slightly more mother of mongols (17.1 per cent as compared with 10.7 per cent of control mothers) reported having to consult a physician at some time in their lives for menstrual difficulties, usually menorrhagia.…”

Curve Fitting, Maternal Age and Mongolism

“…(a) Sigler et al [1967] and Smith and R ecord [1955] found no difference between the fertility of mongol and non-mongol sibships prior to an index child, but Cowie and Slater [1968] suggest th at after the age of 35, the fertility of women who later bear a mongol is rather higher than th a t of women who later bear a normal infant.…”