Do Pregnant Women Need A Blood Test To Check If Their Unborn Child Has Down Syndrome?
At 13 weeks, my doctor “offered” the blood test to check for your baby’s “chance” of having downs. He said if the blood test came back at an increased risk, they would do an ultrasound and if it showed increased risk, they would do an amniocentesis. However, he did not advise getting it done and I agreed. He said they only do amniocentesis in extreme situations because of the risks involved. I wouldn’t ever consider abortion so there was no point in me knowing what my chances of having a downs baby would be. Plus, there are so many women that have tests showing increased risk of downs and their baby is fine. Therefore, all that worry was useless. Amniocentesis is the ONLY way to know for sure if your baby has downs. Good luck!
First of all, if you don’t care one way or another if your child has Downs Syndrome, then you certainly can refuse the test. The blood test is just a risk assessment to determine if further testing needs to be done. It DOES NOT MEAN that the fetus has Downs. They can’t realistically do amnio on every woman to determine if the baby has Downs and it would be pointless as many women would not choose to abort in the first place. At the time this test was created, an amnio had a risk of 1 in 250 of causing a miscarriage (the risk is actually less now). Therefore, amnio was only recommended for women who tested at a risk of 1 in 250 or less. I will be getting CVS (chorionic villi sampling) which I think they do from 8-12 weeks. I would automatically be offered this test as I’m older. Similar procedure, but they take placental tissue rather than amniotic fluid. This does have a slightly higher risk of miscarriage than a later amnio test, but it is 100% correct – either the fetus has Downs or
