Newborn blood spot cards

[Applesandpears56]

Does anyone know if you can access them to order private tests on the blood collected?
Would the blood samples still show viruses and bacteria even after a long storage?

Or if you can generally grow a virus from dried blood?

As far as i know you cant access them. They only collect just enough blood to test for the specific genetic contitions they can check for.

A virus would not survive that long on paper amyway. What virus would you want to test for? Its quite rare to have a virus in the blood, but if you think theres somethibg wrong you could speak to the gp and they could do blood tests if necessary.

Thanks. I actually asked her consultant since I posted this and hr said you can access them but you wouldn't be able to test for viruses or bacteria - you can test for genetic things though. Was only wondering as we had suspected sepsis but nothing could be grown in the bloods partly I think because antibiotics were given before a blood sample taken. She had the blood spot taken before though.

I see, glad you managed to speak to someone. Can be frustrating not to be able to get a full result from blood cultures taken after antibiotics started, but main thing is to get the antibiotics in and working as soon as possible.

Hope your dd is better though.

All back to good health thanks. Just frustrating not to know what happened.

My DS is newly diagnosed with the CMV virus and they will be checking his blood spot test at 5 days old. So it can be done.

My DS is newly diagnosed with the CMV virus and they will be checking his blood spot test at 5 days old. So it can be done.

My DS is newly diagnosed with the CMV virus and they will be checking his blood spot test at 5 days old. So it can be done.

He is only 3.5 months though.