Hi there,
Looking for some advice. A bit of background. I am 30 years old, and am 14 weeks pregnant. This is my second pregnancy, although I have no children. I fell pregnant in June 2022 and sadly experienced a missed miscarriage at 17 weeks pregnant in September 2022. We were lucky to fall pregnant again in December, but I am naturally more nervous this time round, and am also higher risk as I have a subchorionic haematoma. All round very anxious throughout this pregnancy 😣
During my first pregnancy I had the combined screening at 12 weeks & 1 day and got the following results:
Papp A - 0.46
HCG - 0.84
Nuchal Thickness 1.4mm
Weight: 10st 0
Smoking status: Non smoker
Age: 29
These results gave me a 1 in 5000 risk of Downs Syndrome. When I lost my baby, all genetic tests came back clear.
Fast forward to this pregnancy, I also had the combined screening but this time at 12 weeks & 6 days (so almost 13 weeks) and got the following results:
Papp A - 0.53
HCG - 2.36
Nuchal Thickness: 2.1mm
Weight: 10st 0
Smoking status: Non smoker
Age: 29 (at conception)
This time, although I am still low risk, my results are 1 in 240 which is really high for my age group and naturally has made me worry. Because I am not "high risk" I haven't qualified for any further NHS testing and so have paid the £400 private fee for NIPT, but am still looking at a further 7 day wait from today and its driving me round the bend, I am literally losing sleep over the worry.
I understand that I am low risk, but also recognise that the risk threshold changed somewhat over recent years from 250 to 150, so I would have been classed as high risk a few years back. I rung the screening team for some reassurance and to get hold of the breakdown that gave me my score, and the lady helpfully explained that my PAPP A is better this time round, my HCG is higher but they are generally happy with anything below 6(?) and so the only difference she could see was my Nuchal Thickness. However at my 12 week scan, I again was told they were happy with anything below 3mm and I have also read that the NT increases in size up until 14 weeks and so I think the difference from my previous pregnancy to this one, in terms of NT size, is because the scans were a week apart.
I also noticed after my call, that the hospital have input my weight wrong on the combined screening test, they have put down that I weigh 12st 0lbs when I have never weighed over 10st 0lbs, so this is definitely a typo and would have put my BMI as 31.7 and "obese" - I am very short, only 5ft.
I am just looking for some reasurrance really, I know nobody knows for sure and I won't have a better picture until I receive my NIPT results back but hoping someone can make me feel better that my results aren't scarily abnormal/high and also whether the added weight may have increased my risk as well.
Any help / advice is welcomed.
Many thanks,
Amanda