triple test = high risk:any pattern with previous pregnancies?

[katharinepearce]

Hi - I was hoping for advice. I have just had my triple test results and they have come back as 'high risk' (1 in 200) - vs a risk for my age of 1 in 1000. In my previous pregnancy I had a risk of 1 in 300 vs a risk for my age at the time of 1 in 1500, but didn't think any more of it as it was still above the high risk threshold.

I just wondered whether anyone had any information on whether you can have some kind of inbuilt tendency to produce a higher risk result than your age would suggest??

This time, I have been offered a more detailed 20 week scan next week as I refused amnio - do you know what else they will look for in this that would help us to know more?

Thanks for any advice - am trying not to worry but as every other poster acknowledges, this is hard!!!

Sorry to hear about your worries. I am in a similar boat and have been given a risk of 1:190 following combined nuchal and blood tests. Worrying constantly despite knowing that chances are everything will be fine. I don't know much about the triple test (I assume you mean the blood test in mid trimester) but think it is prone to false positives and increasing with increasing age. I am having a scan and possibly an amnio on wednesday (I am 16weeks today). My understanding of the scan is that they look for so-called "soft markers" of chromosomal abnormalities ie heart, length of long bones, and many more that I can't remember, but basically just a very detailed look at all the organs to find any abnormalities. I have seen in all my reading that even if there are no indicators of anything amiss you still have a risk of down's syndrome so it doesn't rule it out completely.

The other thing to remember is that the risk is an arbitrary cut off. In England until recently 1:250 was considered high risk and then about 2 months ago this was changed to 1:150. So I was congratulated on my good result which would have been considered high risk only a few months ago. But the main thing is that the value means very little really and your risk isn't that different from your first pregnancy.

I hope this helps and that all goes well for you.