amniocentosis

[goldenpeach]

I had my percentage back it's 1:1,300, which since I'm 40 seems quite high (so I'm low risk). I am wondering now if to go for the amnio or not. The risk of miscarriage is higher than my risk of Down's according to percentage. Any thoughts? What did you do?

According to that your risk of Downs is more than ten times lower than the risk of miscarriage after amnio. Very clear to me. Personally I wouldn't go any further.

With my first child, my original risk was something like 1:3000, then things were found at my 20w scan which doubled the risk and I was offered amnio. But even so I felt that it just didn't compare with 1:100 risk of miscarriage, and chose not to have amnio.

I had a Down's risk of 1 in 250 at 33 with my second pregnancy, so you're right - yours is very low really.

Nobody can or should tell you what to do on this one, but fwiw I think that before you have any invasive test you have to think very hard about what you would do with the results. I don't think it is something where you can wait to see what comes back and then decide what to do. There isn't a lot of time to spare, apart from anything else, and these aren't decisions you should feel rushed into making.

I didn't have an amnio, btw - dh and I did consider it at length but decided that the miscarriage risk was too high, and that we were unlikely to terminate in any case, so it seemed in our case a silly risk for what would really have just been information.

Last week I was given a downs risk of 1:33 (I'm 38). However since I've already had 3 m/c we decided that since it means only a 3% chance of downs we would wait until the 20wk scan. We couldn't live with the thought of m/c a healthy child if we had an amnio.

I am 38 and started with a risk of 1 in 58 as I already have a child with down syndrome. After having a nuchal fold test - my chance came back at 1 in 969 - the same as someone who is 26 without my history. There is no way I am having an amnio. I did not even have an amnio when we basically knew our child would have down syndrome when a hard marker was found at the 20 week scan - risk was 1 in 5 based on the heart defect. In fact we were originally led to believe that if dd1 was born without down syndrome it would be very very very rare- so evenhigher than 1 in 5!! We decided that we would not terminate and so an amnio was not an option. This was our baby and we were having her.

I guess if you would terminate the pregnancy based on the fact the baby had down syndrome and you just have to know then to me - an amnio seems the best decision. If you would not terminate and am happy to wait until the birth with a low risk like this then why put yourself through the procedure.

I am 41 and had risk of 1:530 so decided to have amnio (last Tuesday in fact, currently waiting for results). If my risk had been as low as yours, I possibly wouldn't have had the amnio. I wanted to have either peace of mind for the rest of the pregnancy or if a chromosomal disorder is found, the opportunity to terminate the pregnancy now.

Goldenpeach - I'm 43 and my brother has downs. My risk came back as 1:559 (just based on age, it was 1:50). I din't go for the amnio as the risk of miscarriage is 1:100, therefore statistcally I, like yourself, are more likely to miscarry from the amnio, than to have a downs baby. I think if your risk is over 1:100, it might be worth having the amnio.

Your risk factor is very very low though, so you really have no need to risk an amnio.