Renouncing chemo mother rescues her daughter

Waiver of chemo: mother sacrifices herself for her baby

01/25/2015

A 25-year-old pregnant woman suffering from bone cancer had refrained from undergoing chemotherapy so as not to endanger her baby's life. Meanwhile, the woman has given birth to a healthy daughter. Now it seems too late for the patient. She was diagnosed with a tumor in the brain.

Cancer diagnosis in the tenth week of pregnancy
When 25-year-old Californian Ashley Caughey was in her 10th week of pregnancy, she was diagnosed with bone cancer in her leg. The woman decided against a possibly life-saving chemotherapy, so as not to endanger her baby. Like the Austrian „Kronen newspaper“ writes, she has only a few months left to live. „I did not have to think twice, because the doctors told me that my baby probably would not be able to get chemotherapy“, said the young mother to the US news channel CNN. It was clear to her that she wanted to protect her unborn child and not run the risk of killing her.

Cancer has spread in the meantime
In July of last year, her daughter Paisley was born. As a result, the mother of two immediately began therapy. However, the cancer had already spread in the meantime in the body. A tumor was also detected in the brain. It is said that the doctors give the patient only a few months to live. The young woman was indeed shaken by the diagnosis, but she regretted her decision not: „When I look at this beautiful girl, I know that I did the right thing.“

Diagnosis came apparently late
As in the „Yahoo News Germany“ Ashley Caughey nevertheless quarrels with her fate. If the doctors had diagnosed cancer earlier, their lives could have been very different. „I am angry“, said the young mother. „The doctor I went to back then, who told me that something was wrong, probably cost me my life. It is a very aggressive cancer. I could have had more time.“ She already complained of pain in her leg in 2012, but the physicians assumed arthritis. The brave woman will probably not see her daughter's first birthday. She will also leave behind her six-year-old son, Braiden, and her husband, Jonathan, to whom she had only been given a jury last November.

Chemotherapy may not hurt the unborn baby
Not only may the doctors have diagnosed the cancer late, but they have also given false advice about the therapy. Chemotherapy during pregnancy does not necessarily harm the unborn baby, according to scientists. An international team of medical experts had years ago in the medical journal „The Lancet Oncology“ reports that in a study of children with cancerous mothers, the affected children developed perfectly normal and neither growth nor intelligence, heart function or hearing were disturbed due to the anticancer drugs. Accordingly, nothing speaks against chemo if it is given after the first trimester of pregnancy. (Ad)