amputation

My Father

Hello my name is Heather Page I am 32 years old. My father was born in 1944 with only one hand. For many years we were told it was a birth defect and that he lived a normal life. No answer were given nor name given of the birth defect until years down the road when we heard the term ABS.

Growing up my father was made fun of and picked on. He grew up in Texas and when he was old enough he applied for the military and was denied due to the fact he was handicapped.

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Abby’s story

Hi! My name is Abby and I’m 13 years old. I was born with ABS on my left hand and my right foot. On my left hand, my index finger is a little nub. The rest of my fingers are full, but the skin looks kind of weird. It isn’t too noticeable. On my right foot, my big toe is a nub. The rest of my toes are perfectly fine.

My mom always tells me that when she found out I had ABS,

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Sarah’s ABS Story

I’m Sarah, 14 years ago, on the 1st of May, I was born in Sydney Australia. Amniotic Band Syndrome has cause for me to lose most of my forearm. From what my mother has told me, about 26 weeks into the pregnancy, I was diagnosed with ABS. When I was born, my mum and dad had many scares for what I would have to face during my lifetime, For example, how to ride a bike?

Since I have remembered, I was raised to respond with “I was born like that.” If I ever got asked “What happened to your arm?”,

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Mike Alt’s ABS Story

I was born in Santa Clara, California with ABS in December of 1989. I was a fully healthy baby except for the fact that I was born with only two full fingers on each hand. I was only given a pinky and a thumb and the rest in between were nubs. My parents faced a difficult choice. They were given two options; one they could try to perform a surgery on my hands that would extend the nubs and try to make them resemble full fingers to the best of their ability.

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Julie’s Experience with ABS

“Miss Julie, your arm looks frozen. Is it dead?” a five year old dancer once asked me. She had every reason to wonder.Tinted gray from dirt and daily wear, my hand never moves. The fingers are sometimes bent in abnormal ways, and after a long day of dancing, the smell is not so pleasant. But, no one had ever called it frozen before. I found such a description humorous, and in a way, pretty accurate. Throughout my whole life my arm has raised brows and prompted questions.

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Nikolas’s ABS Story

My son Nikolas was born on April 12th of 2011. When I was 35 weeks pregnant I went for my weekly check up and from their sent to the hospital. They said that Nikolas quit growing. From their I was placed on monitors 2 to 3 times a week and had weekly sonograms done to make sure Nikolas was getting a good supply of blood. They said my placenta looked “aged” and he would need to be delivered at 37 weeks or I would risk the chance of having a still birth.

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Marisa’s ABS story

Hello! My name is Marisa, and I was born 15 years ago with ABS. I am missing my left hand, and my left forearm is about 2 inches shorter than my other arm. You can actually see where the bands were wrapped around my elbow – apparently it was pretty tight.

I have been a prosthesis wearer since the age of 5 months old. I had myoelectric until I was about 10, but I only charged it about twice a month so it was pretty much useless.

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Max’s ABS Story

Hi I am the Aunt of this beautiful baby boy named Max. My sister had him on June 25, 2011. She found out that he was missing an arm from the elbow down when she was six months pregnant. Being a first time aunt I was devastated, and being a nurse and very into nutrition I blamed it on what she ate, which I now know was completely wrong. I stumbled upon this site trying to research if this same thing happens often.

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Maria’s ABS Story

Hi! My name is Maria, and I am 15 years old and from New Orleans, Louisiana. I have three older brothers, so that means that I am the princess of my family. When I was in my mom’s womb, the doctors thought that I was only covering up my toes, so they did
not have any speculation as to why they were not there. When I was born, they realized that my toes were in fact not there, and my fingers were constricted.

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Erricka’s ABS story

I’m turning 40 years old on October 9th of this year. Two weeks ago, I found out, for the first time, why I was born with one hand. Up until then, I was raised to answer the inevitable question, “What happened to your arm?” by saying, “I was born like that.” For my parents and I, this simply meant that the answer was, “I don’t know.”

In 1972, pregnant women didn’t receive sonograms. About 2 weeks before I was born, my Mom noticed that she was leaking fluid.

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