Prenatal screening had failed to reduce the number of babies born with Down’s syndrome in the Netherlands, a Dutch obstetrician claimed yesterday.
Eva Pajkrt, professor of obstetrics at Amsterdam University, told the Oireachtas committee on the Eighth Amendment that the number of babies born with Down’s syndrome had remained constant.
Dutch medical experts were giving evidence to the committee because Irish women sometimes travel to the Netherlands for abortions. Dr Pajkrt said: “A lot of people were scared that the number of those babies would drop but that has not been the case.
“Though there has been an uptake of prenatal screenings, their mothers have become older, so older women may make different choices than younger women. Maybe younger women don’t screen because they think