Gitana,
With all due respect, what you stated is not always the case.
It took a nurse five hours after our son was born to surmise that maybe our baby had DS. Even then it took two weeks for them to grow his chromosomes to know for sure, and they had to send them to Texas.
It was really his lack of muscle tone that was the clincher. I am Scandinavian so I have the almond shaped eyes and my husband has them to some degree as well.
Some babies are born with Mosaic Down syndrome (a much more mild form) and do not show many of the phenotypical features associated with Down syndrome, like those with straight Trisomy 21 have or Translocation Trisomy 21 (translocation trisomy are usually much more severe).
I would be thrilled if the Jolie-Pitt twins had Down syndrome. It would be a wonderful thing for those of us in the DS community. Think of what Ronald Reagen did for Alzheimer's or Michael J Fox has done for Parkinson's.
Not that I would wish tragedy on anyone, but it would be good for people to see things in a different light.
This conversation has been fascinating to me, on so many levels~ Frigga
Thanks for the info. I don't want to contradict a mom of a DS kid since clearly you know much more than I ever could on the subject! But, from what I have read, kids with DS have certain features that are detectable immediately by a doctor, at birth, like hand creases, etc. Of course I understand doing a blood test. Especially if a doctor doesn't want to come out and say, "Look, you child appears to have characteristics of DS." It's easier to say, "hey, we need to runs some tests here." Then, the test is done and may simply prove what the doctor knows and gives the parents certainty. In any event, by the age these kids are now, surely their pediatrician would know if there was an issue and they appear to have none of the features of classic DS.
I was interested to learn about mosaic DS. I'd never heard about that before! However, what I just read indicates that it is not Down Syndrome, but a disorder in which the child has some of the chromosomal abnormalities of DS but not all. I checked out this website that has tons of pictures of kids with the disorder.
http://www.trisomy16.org/html/mosaic16.html Looking at those pics, many people could have the disorder and in some cases it would be hard to tell by physical appearance exactly what's going on. Some have slight DS features but not all.
But the question was whether the Jolie-Pitt kids have DS, by which I take to mean, classic Down's Syndrome and IMO, they most certainly do not. I also don't think there's a chance they have any form of it, like Mosaic DS. They both look very normal to me, although the girl has a slightly bulbous forehead which is fairly typical in some kids.
