High risk of Downs following 12 week scan

[KiraCeleste]

Hi everyone! 👋

I'm new here, currently 13 weeks 5 days pregnant with my first. All was going fine but I had the dreaded phonecall today from the midwife, who informed me I have a 1 in 16 risk for DS. She also noted my Papp results were quite low at 0:38, which can sometimes be an indicator of chromosomal abnormality.

Just curious to hear other women's stories like this - I'm a bit older side (at 34) which I've heard can cause false positives? I'm going for the NIPT (aka Harmony) test tomo (which is thankfully free in Wales!) which will give us a clearer picture and we are prepared for having to make the decisions that follow.

Tbh 1 in 16 did found like a lot but my partner reminded me that there is over 90% chance they don't have it. There was also nothing mentioned about my scan. So these are good things too, right?! 🤞

Sorry to hear you are going through this.

When the same happened to us, I found it useful to try to forget about statistics, percentage chances etc as I was driving myself crazy. Either your baby has an issue, or it doesn't... And soon you will know. There is plenty to be positive about and nothing is certain.

I hope you get good news soon. Meanwhile, you may find the ARC helplibe a good source of info and support.

I understand how difficult this is if it helps at all I was 1 in 2 and all was fine. An agonising wait for the results though. I hope all works out ok for you.

Hey Kira..me too. Yesterday aswell. I'm 38 and going for the harmony test Monday. I'm not sure how to feel about it...yesterday I was down. Then o felt bad for being so negative. I scored 131 on the initial blood test. I cant even remember how she explained it to me. To be honest, I've decided it's not going to make me decide any different so not sure why I got it done in the first place, why I'm even going next week or why I'm feeling so shitty about it.

@SylvanianFrenemies thankyou - I was obsessing over the stats but it really doesn't help! Now just trying to stay positive and hope for the best. The Midwife recommended ARC too :)

@lemonsaretheonlyfruit thankyou - hopefully I'll get results back in around 10 days time fingers crossed. That's amazing you were 1 in 2! Are you in your mid-30's too? The midwife said at 34 I am on the cusp where the risk level increases, so that's affected my chances a lot..

@Nicnoc147it's such an awful feeling isn't it. I was really low last night but starting to feel better now.Good luck to you - I hope everything works outfor you too.

Hi,
This happened to me, including the low pappa at 0.3 and high hcg.
I had the harmony and was lucky that the result came back as low risk.

At the time, I was told that the false high risk results on the nhs was incredibly high, as much as 70%. So in effect, only 30% of these results end up with a positive diagnosis.

Good luck.

@MotherExtraordinaire wow, that is a ridiculous figure! I did suspect that may be the case, there seem to be a lot of mums on here having the same experience.

My nuchal scan and blood tests suggested a higher chance of Downs at 36. I didn't go for the amniocentesis because of the miscarriage risk as we would have been happy with a Downs baby (obviously from the point of view of the child having difficulties and possible further health problems we were hoping not though). He wasn't Downs and neither was the next baby, when I was 39 and similarly high numbers. It wasn't as high as 1 in 16 but that is still very much more likely that the baby won't have Dpwns.

I just wondered how you ladies were getting on, also waiting for harmony test results after a high chance of downs.
How long did your results take?