The Experts

This section explores what some of the experts have said about Vasa Praevia.


Professor Kypros Nicolaidos

‘...this man, rather than come and shoot us, he is a lawyer, he took up a major campaign, he created a pressure group an organisation looking at Vasa Praevia, trying to promote ohstetricians to have a look at this condition.

He left his extremely busy lawyer's office last year and he joined us in Barcelona, and he came again with little Francesca who is the child from the next pregnancy, where we did several scans to reassure them, and to reassure ourselves, that there was no Vasa Praevia.

And I take this opportunity to congratulate him for trying to educate us-.. so thank you sir - and thank you Philippe for bringing this topic up..."

(Addressing congress at the 6th World Congress in Fetal Medicine, Croatia, 19 June 2007)

Philippe Jeanty MD PhD

l would like to thank Daren & Natalie Samat for making me aware of the human side of Vasa Praevia, and reminding us that these are not just vessels - these are babies..."

‘...where else in medicine can one single image, colour Doppler image, improve the outcome by a factor of 20?...’
(Addressing congress at the 6th World Congess in Fetal Medicine, Croatia, 19 June 2007)

Mr. Christopher Griffin (FRANZCOG)

Consultant Heartlands & Solihull NHS Trust

‘...The screening methodology is simple, cheap, quick and reproducible which makes it an ideal screening tool...'

‘…I have been personally screening for Vasa Praevia over the past 18 months and have detected 2 cases where fetal death would have ensued had we not detected the cases in question. There is no other single entity in screening within ultrasound that I perform that wil reduce the still birth and neonatal death rate in singleton pregnancies…"
(They Work For You - www.theyworkforyou.com/ 17 March 2008)

‘..so what you will say to the sonographer is; ‘identify the low lying placentas', those 10% of scans which are low lying will go up to a fetal medicine unit and there they will use colour Doppler to identify those cases of Vasa Praevia.."

(BBC London News February 2DD7)

John C. Smulian, MD, MPH, and Yinlca Oyelese, MD

(Division of Maternal Fetal Medicine, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences, UMD NJ Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, 125 Paterson Street, New Brunswick, N, 08901-1977; e-mail: yinkamd@aoI.com)

‘...We can think of no other condition in which prenatal diagnosis and appropriate perinatal management makes such a dramatic impact on the difference between survival and death for an otherwise healthy infant. Thus, especially because it adds little in terms of time to the routine obstetric sonogram, it is our opinion that screening for Vasa Previa should be routine...

American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology Green Journal (April 2006)

Elizabeth Daly-Jones

1 Ultrasound Department, Queen Charlotte's and Chelsea Hospital, London, UK

2 Fetal Medicine Center, Clinica Las Condes, Casilla 208, Santiago 20, Chile. fetalmed@yahoo.com

"…Vasa Praevia can have the catastrophic consequences of a fetal or neonatal death. There are few antenatal diagnoses whereby ultrasound can have such a direct impact on outcome and dramatically increase the chances of survival in pregnancies affected by this condition. The exclusion of Vasa Praevia can take under a minute and its inclusion within the routine anomaly scan should be prioritised. Until this occurs, healthy babies will continue to die due to this condition..."

(February 2008 - BMUS Joumal “Ultrasound” 2008; 16{1 1: 8-14)

Michele Lee Sook Ling, MB.BCh.BAO., MRCOG, Hemashree Rajesh, MBBS, MRCOG, Devendra Kanagalingam, MBBS, MRCOG.

Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Singapore General Hospital, Singapore.

‘...The learning point [of this article] is that every case of placenta praevia should be screened on high resolution ultrasound machine with Doppler study for Vasa Praevia. In addition, there is a case for routine screening for Vasa Praevia especially since the condition, though rare, is catastrophic.)

Professor Dr. Yves Ville

Université Paris-Quest, CHR Poissy-St Germain, Dept of Gynaecology and Obstetrics, 10 rue du Champ-Gaillard, 78303 Poissy Cedex, France. email: yviIle@wanadoo.fr

"...Vasa Praevia is a rare event associated with a high perinatal mortality. Its prenatal ultrasound diagnosis is reliable and may increase survival from 44 to 94% in cases subsequently managed by elective Cesarean section at 35 weeks…"

Ultrasound Obstet Gynecol 2006; 27:1-5 (Published online www.interscience.wiIey.com)

Mr. Ric Warren FRCOG

Honorary Secretary, Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists &

Mrs. Charnjit Dhillon

Director of Standards, RCOG - 26th October 2007

"…We remain understanding and supportive of all that you are trying to achieve.