Mortality of third generation Irish people living in England and Wales: longitudinal study

and who informed them of the results. Although there were some examples of excellent counselling, there were other examples of grossly inadequate or frankly misleading information being given. We can only speculate about how this variation might affect parents as our study was not designed to determine associations between the quality of counselling and the outcome of the pregnancy or subsequent emotional wellbeing of the parents. 12-17 Some units providing prenatal testing services are not adhering to the published guidelines concerning the provision of information (box). would like to thank the cytogeneticists from all the laboratories in the North and South Thames Health Regions for notifying us of appropriate cases. We also thank all the doctors, midwives, and counsellors who agreed to be interviewed; the parents who answered our questionnaires; Elizabeth Winchester and Liz Redfern for their assistance; and Christine Garrett and Sue Holder for their helpful comments. We also thank Hazel Showell for transcribing the tapes. This study was conducted as part of the European Union concerted action from Biomed 2 programme.