This post, by community member, Beth, originally ran this past
March for Trisomy Awareness and World Down Syndrome Day. Given
that it’s National Down Syndrome Awareness Month we decided to
run it again. What Trisomy Awareness Month means is each Trisomy
gets its own day to raise awareness. For example, my daughter
Lauren has Down syndrome. She has 3 copies of the 21st
chromosome, so our day to celebrate and raise awareness is March
21 (3-21). My friend Marta has a 9 year old son who has Trisomy
18. Their day is 3-18. According to Wikipedia, trisomy is where
there are 3 copies of a certain chromosome instead of the usual
2. There are several different types of trisomy. The most common
type is Down syndrome (Trisomy 21). The other five types are
rarer. Kayden, Marta’s son has Edwards syndrome (Trisomy 18).
There are trisomies that occur on the 8th, 9th, 13th, and 22nd
chromosomes also. Lauren was born in 2007, during a blizzard.
She was a week early due to my blood pressure, and I needed an
emergency c-section.