New Parents

With the advancement of Ultra Sound Scanning limb deficiencies are sometimes detected before birth and can cause additional worries for the parents to be. Early detection of this nature can have its advantages and disadvantages. It can be helpful in so much as it gives the families time to find out as much information before birth as possible and to prepare friends and relations as well as themselves. On the other hand it can add stress to the pregnancy as parents wonder if any other problems have remained undetected.
If you have given birth to or have been given a diagnosis of a child with a limb deficiency, you will know of the shock you have experienced. You have to deal with some very painful feelings depression, anxiety, loneliness and perhaps feelings of guilt and anger as well. You will also have to decide how to break this news to family and friends.

It is possible too, that you searched your mind over and over again trying to pin-point the cause of the deficiency, only to find yourself at a loss. You may even have blamed yourself, wondering if some previous action, in some way, could have caused your child's problem.It is likely that your doctors asked you questions about any illness that you may have had in the past, or drugs that you mayor may not have taken. This may have led you to believe that the doctors knew something but were withholding it from you. The reality is that the doctors cannot give you an answer because in most instances they themselves do NOT have the answer, only personal theories. Neither medicine or science, as yet, understands just how or why a limb stops developing normally during pregnancy. Until they do they will continue to search. Remember that all through history there have been babies born with upper limb deficiencies of various degrees, and it is not just a modern day problem.

However all this does not stop parents blaming themselves, and if you find yourself continuing to agonise in this way, you should consider seeking help from another 'Reach' member or Counsellor. You deserve and need your peace of mind for your own happiness, the happiness of the family, as well as your child.

There are going to be times when you as parents will feel angry with your children, this is natural, you will feel angry because you are human. So if you felt angry when your child was born with a limb deficiency, it was also because you were human. You were gravely disappointed; you did not know how you would be able to cope. If you felt some initial 'drawing away', or had some difficulty in looking at the limb, you felt this too because your are a normal human being. Confronted with something strange and inexplicable, it is no wonder that we experience these feelings; it does not mean that we do not love the child, or that we will not be good parents. When your child is newly born, he/she is not yet developed, and as you lovingly watch your baby grow, change and learn to do things, you will rapidly forget all these feelings and misgivings.