Q: My wife is in the 5th month of pregnancy. She went for a scan recently and the doctor informed her that the baby might be having a cleft palate. She was then advised to go for a 4D scan. Would the 4D scan give us a clue on the extent of the cleft? If the extent of the cleft is really huge can we choose to abort the baby, as we don't want the baby to go through the entire trauma of feeding difficulties, hearing, speech, breathing problems and other social/psychological problems? We have a healthy 18 month old baby girl baby.

A:A 4D ultrasound offers a unique view of cleft palate type and extent as well as allowing the detection of small but significant abnormalities of the face, ears, heart, hands and feet. It would be extremely useful in this situation. To facilitate decision making, it would be useful to undergo an amniocentesis as well to exclude an abnormal number of chromosomes. It is safe and legal to abort a fetus upto 20 weeks of gestation. It is technically feasible in certain situations to abort an abnormal fetus, before it can exist in the outside world.