Say What?!?! That's Been Proven Safe for Decades!

Today I ran across two articles that left me flabbergasted and incised. One reports that giving chemotherapy to pregnant cancer patients is a novel and unheard of idea in the scientific community. Perhaps that is the case in Belgium, where this study originates, but MD Anderson has been doing it since 1992 with GREAT results. That flabbergasted me. I mean it's not as if that same site didn't do a story on a 28 year old woman diagnosed with breast cancer while 20 weeks pregnant... You know... Erika's Miracle Journey? Sometimes I wonder if the editors read their own sites. I guess it's easy for articles to get lost given the volume of articles they publish.

However, at least this isn't dangerously misleading. Although the comments... Whew... There are some times when I should just stay away from the comments sections. I'm not usually overly sensitive, but when people suggest I should have just 'changed my diet' or had better 'nutrition' and my cancer would have magically disappeared and I wouldn't have 'risked' my baby (who is 5 years old, going into 1st grade, reading, writing, and has bypassed all her age milestones) by doing dangerous chemotherapy I get a bit upset. Sorry, but 5 generations of women in my family with only the last 2 surviving doesn't seem like diet or nutrition played a big part since we span continents and centuries. If anything - especially to the 'natural' folks, the last 2 generations should be the ones that didn't survive since we have GMO foods, less healthy eating habits, higher BMIs, antibiotics, etc that the previous generations didn't have. Apparently, that comment author must subscribe the same philosophy as the next blog post... 

Another blog post trying to appear scientific completely discounted real science and medicine for 'natural' care and accused women seeking chemotherapy while pregnant of unnecessarily and flagrantly risking their unborn babies lives. That incised me! Of course chemotherapy attacks rapidly growing cells - that's what cancer is. However, what this blogger fails to realize is that while a baby is obviously rapidly growing, a baby is also protected by the placenta. The placenta is a many splendored thing. One of its greatest feats is to act as a filter between mother and baby. Only molecules of a certain size can pass through the placenta. Chemotherapy drugs tend to be large complex molecules - especially those used in pregnant women. These molecules can pass through the placenta about as well as a large rectangular block fits through a pin hole - NOT very well. While those in the natural camp profess to believe that nature has provided all the remedies we need, they tend to forget that one of the greatest of all of nature's designs is the mother's body. Women are designed to compensate, even to their own detriment, for their baby's health. We are built to protect the baby from harm and does a very good job - my earlier example of the placenta is one example. Another example is that a woman's body will pull calcium from her own bones to give to the baby if she doesn't get enough in her diet. Even a woman with hyperemesis gravida (extreme morning sickness) can have very healthy babies because of God's wonderful design of a mother's body. 

While the first article does no real harm, this article can undoubtably cause many women to lose their lives or lose their children to abortion or both mother and child may die. Had I not sought REAL science instead of pseudo science like this, it is quite possible that my daughter and I wouldn't be alive today. In general, I have nothing against natural remedies and a healthy lifestyle as opposed to constant running to the doctor all the time, I will NEVER support pseudo-science/medicine like this that basically sentences mothers and their children to death. It is false information like this that leads to people believing that abortion is necessary 'for the life of the mother'. Lies like these need to be exposed before more lives are lost. Please be sure to tell every one you can that being pregnant when diagnosed with cancer is NOT a death sentence for either the mother or the baby - BOTH CAN and SHOULD LIVE!

Here's an article from MD Anderson that gives a brief overview of the history, success, and safety of chemotherapy while pregnant.