About screening tests for Down's Syndrome

Down's syndrome test 'risk to healthy babies' - Telegraph

Extract:

"Screening tests for Down's syndrome could lead women to undergo needless invasive tests and risk miscarrying healthy babies, a doctor warned yesterday.

A retired doctor writing in a medical journal has cast doubt on the value of using ultrasound screening to establish a couple's risk of having a baby with Down's.

The test, done at 11 or 12 weeks into the pregnancy, measures the fluid at the back of the foetus's neck and this, together with maternal age, is calculated to give an individual risk of Down's.

Parents use this score to decide whether to have a test called an amniocentesis. This involves taking a sample of fluid from the womb.

The test determines if the baby does have Down's, but carries a one in 200 risk of causing a miscarriage.

Dr Hylton Meire, formerly of King's College Hospital, wrote in Ultrasound that if all pregnant women underwent the amniocentesis test it could lead to the miscarriage of 3,200 healthy babies a year."


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