Skip to main content
Submitted by PatientsEngage on 21 March 2016

By Preeti Arora, a mother of a child with Down's Syndrome

My daughter Amber is all of 9 years now and she attends the Navjyoti Special School in Vasant Kunj, Delhi. When she was born under C-section and it dawned on us that she had Down's Syndrome, it was naturally devastating. The doctor simply termed my baby ‘abnormal’. My husband kept this information from me for about 4 days. This was our first child, I had a completely normal pregnancy, all my tests had been done on time and my reports were okay. So, we were in no way prepared for this debacle and my family was shattered.

We were eventually left to fend for our child on our own, as we lived on our own, without the extended family to help us out in any way. We had no idea about Down's Syndrome and what the implications of managing Down's Syndrome were. We slipped into depression and would just cry and feel miserable. Eventually we decided to gear up, think positively and try and create a cheerful world for our child.

Our daughter slowly started responding to our efforts as we were also greenhorns. But we put in our best foot forward in trying to train and stimulate her and she started overcoming her struggles to walk and cooperated with us in every way. It was a daily battle but we never gave up and continued spending quality time with our daughter after our day at the office. When she was almost 3, she started walking, much to our delight, and we were already looking forward to achieving the next milestone with our little one.

Her first school was a special school, Srahana, in Panchsheel Enclave, which she attended for a year. We then shifted her to CSKM Public school in Chattarpur, a mainstream school, where both the teachers and the staff were very cooperative. This is where she learnt to sit in a classroom, but naturally behaviourial issues were a deterrent.  Eventually, I moved her to Navjyoti, her present school. This school and my daughter’s mentor, Sangmitra, a great teacher and a mentor, have been marvellous for her. This school has given her a platform to perform and learn. It taught my daughter her name and her parents’ names, it taught her social interaction, dancing and yoga among other things and most importantly to be a happy and cheerful child.

We feel good that with our combined effort and immense support from the school, our child is able to communicate everything now. She is a little unclear in her speech but she manages to tell us everything.  We are so glad that because of her we got so many things - learning, ups and down and materialistic things also. She taught us to understand the needs of special persons. Our life is completely positive, full of positiveness, lot of struggle and leaded to successful and happy family.

We hope to give our daughter an independent, stress free and healthy life.  I want to make her self-reliant and for her to become professionally competent so that she is not only financially independent in future but can lead her life on her own terms.

Read other parents of children with Down's Syndrome:

Dev, our surprise package

Down's in the new UP in my life

My Yogi Baba

Condition