Prenatal Breakdown Summary

The article, “Prenatal Tests Puts Down Syndrome in Hard Focus,” begins with a soft lead. It focuses on Sarah Itoh, a child with Down syndrome. I found this to be effective because of the nature of this article, it is talking about a child with Down syndrome and it shows off a little bit of her personality. The nut graph of the article comes after the author describes that Sarah likes school and how Math was hard, but it is getting better. I believe the nut graph is:

“Until this year, only pregnant women 35 and older were routinely tested to see if their fetuses had the extra chromosome that causes Down syndrome. As a result many couples were given the diagnosis only at birth. But under a new recommendation from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, doctors have begun to offer a new, safer screening procedure to all pregnant women, regardless of age.” (Harmon, 2007).

The nut graph set the rest of the article up to discuss the campaign by parents who are worried about their children with Down Syndrome and their future but also the new advancements giving women of all ages early diagnoses of Down syndrome in the pregnancies and the rate of

It started talking about the one girl, Sara, then went on to discus prenatal testing. It went from the testing to the predicament of Down syndrome pregnancies being terminated but then it discussed how parents with children who have Down syndrome are reaching out and trying to change people’s minds. Then at the end of the article different people with Down syndrome were introduced that were never mentioned before. I think that the article could have been more concise if it focused on one person with Down syndrome or a couple just given the news that their pregnancy was Down syndrome positive and then went to discus the dwindling Down syndrome population due to prenatal testing and then discussed the efforts of advocates to support Down syndrome