Low risk but high HCG

[AprilTTC]

Hi everyone.

I am currently 15 weeks pregnant with my first baby. It is an IVF pregnancy and it’s a PGT normal embryo that we transferred. Despite having a normal embryo we opted for combined screening. My results have come back low risk for my age - 1:260 and I’m aged 40. My NT was 1.9mm (mom = 1) my PappA was 1.54MOM but my HCG was high at 3MOM.

The screening nurses have said it’s likely raised due to IVF treatment and progesterone supplementation, but I can’t help but panic a bit. NIPT seems a bit extreme when I’ve had a normal PGT embryo and a low risk combined result, but wondering if anyone has any experience?

Feel free to tell me if you think I’m being neurotic….pregnancy and IVF have definitely made me more anxious.

Any advice, stories welcome! Xx

Hi yes, I did a post a while back for advice, mine came back high risk though as I was 40 and my pappa was something like 0.60 MOM and my hcg levels came back near 5 MOM and NT was around same as yours and I got 1 in 17 chance of down syndrome. I did the NIPT and everything came back low risk and when born she didn't have down syndrome. They said my age and hcg is what did it but the NT been low was a good sign. They say the age alone puts most in high risk group anyways. I was horribly sick through pregnancy all the way through, same with my first daughter so I was guessing my hcg was high and my hormones were high so could well be your extra hormones. I remember doing the NIPT and them explaining my results and what chances of my test coming back high in that and they said I had a 5.9 percent chance of it coming back high in the NIPT and that would most likely mean she has it but told me to look at it the other way and would mean she has a 94.1percent of not having it. So I would say yours with 1 out of 260 would be something like 99.8 percent chance of not having it and would be just plain bad luck if NIPT came back high. Hope everything turns out OK and you can carry on enjoying your pregnancy

Thanks so much for your reply. Glad you had a good outcome! Is your daughter otherwise healthy? Think it’s just one of those things, some women have higher HCG levels. I know I’m likely being OTT as risk was low overall like you say only 0.38% chance, but after 2 miscarriages I tend to worry about everything.
Thanks for taking the time to reply! Xx

We TFMR as ours did have Down syndrome (1:5 chance and cvs confirmed) and my hCG was a lot higher at 6.31 MoM xxxx

Sorry to hear that. Sending love xx

Oh I totally understand why you would be worried as I experienced a miscarriage before my daughter and it does leave you worrying about everything. My pregnancy itself was very hard, she was measuring SGA and her legs were on the shorter side so apart of me did wonder if she had it, I had to go in to have her at 37 weeks as I was having movement issues and she was under 10th centile and blood pressure was high. She had decided to go breech the day I was in labour and wasn't noticed till I was 8cm. She was small on 3rd centile weighing 5lb 1oz but don't think there was a reason why. She went down to 4lb 6oz and struggled to put weight on after but they think she has a cows milk allergy, she has laryngomalacia also which is a floppy larynx and noisy breathing a airway disorder. But otherwise she is healthy. You are not being OTT and if you were, you have every right to be OTT after what you've been through. I will cross my fingers for you that everything turns out OK.

Just in case anyone follows this in future, I gave birth to a very healthy baby at 40+2 with no complications. He was a good size (91st centile) and none of the scary things I’d read applied to us.