Prenatal screening
Pregnancy screening tests are used to check the development of a growing baby.
Screening looks for possible health concerns early on to provide more effective additional support or management if needed. Pregnancy screening can involve ultrasound scans or blood tests, or a combined approach of both. Ultrasound scans can detect the physical health of a child and blood tests can be used to look for inherited conditions, or infections.
Non-invasive screening tests (NIPT) are a relatively new way of screening for genetic conditions. NIPT involves looking at the genetic information from the pregnancy that circulates in the mother’s blood. Some NIPT tests screen for Klinefelter syndrome (KS). Although screening tests give an indication of a possible health issue they are not perfect. The tests can sometimes make mistakes through either falsely detecting a health concern that is not there, (a false positive), or by missing a health issue that does exist, a false negative.
