A pregnant mother in the UK who refusing chemotherapy to give her unborn child a better chance at life. has given birth.
When doctors diagnosed Heidi Loughlin with an aggressive form of breast cancer, they suggested that she have an abortion before starting cancer treatment. She refused the abortion and treatment both, in a risky but selfless move.
Heidi’s daughter, Ally Louise Smith, was delivered by C-section on Friday – 12 weeks early and weighing just 2lb 5oz – leaving Heidi “over-the-moon”. The police officer is now “excited” to finally start treatment on December 23.
“I can’t wait to get on with it,” she said. “I am excited to have chemo, which sounds absolutely bonkers, but I cannot wait to start because I need to get better for my children.
“It’s best Christmas present, other than having Ally, that I can possibly have.”
Heidi said she was “really scared” about the risks of giving birth to Ally prematurely but her third child “came out crying and kicking”.
“She was absolutely fantastic when she came out – that was an instant relief to me,” the mother-of-three said.
Despite the long road of treatment ahead, Heidi said she wanted to just “get on with it” as her children still had the same needs – “watching Peppa Pig and having tantrums” – as before her diagnosis.
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“I want to just be me which is positive, slightly dark-humoured, and to carry on exactly the same way.”
She remains in hospital where she is just a “three-minute shuffle” down the corridor to her baby daughter.
The 32-year-old mother and police officer discovered symptoms of breast cancer in February when she was breastfeeding Tait. But doctors thought Loughlin had mastitis. They gave her antibiotics and sent her home, according to the report.
“(The doctor) ran through a breast cancer checklist and I said there was zero cancer in my family, I never smoked or drank, and I lived a health lifestyle.,” Loughlin told the news outlet.
Then the symptoms worsened: Her nipples inverted and her skin developed an “orange-peel look,” she said. She was three months pregnant at the time.
In September, Loughlin returned to the doctor’s office where they diagnosed her with inflammatory breast cancer, a rare and aggressive disease – and asked if she wanted to have an abortion.
The young mother insisted on preserving her unborn child’s life – though she has no guarantee that she herself will get better.
Loughlin said she is undergoing a milder form of chemotherapy and taking the hormone drug, Herceptin, until she gives birth.
A recent study found that cancer treatments do not harm unborn children, and abortion is not necessary in maternal cancer cases, LifeNews.com previously reported.
The researchers wrote, “Prenatal exposure to maternal cancer with or without treatment did not impair the cognitive, cardiac, or general development of children in early childhood. Prematurity was correlated with a worse cognitive outcome, but this effect was independent of cancer treatment.”
Thankfully, according to a CNN News story, these days it is rare for a doctor to counsel a cancer patient to have an abortion because now more than ever, women can fight cancer and have healthy children.
