NIPT/Harmony

[goldopals]

Is anyone else having the NIPT (non invasive pre Natal test)? Essentially they take a vital or two of your blood, extract the foetal DNA and run tests for certain abnormalities and sex.

It seems to be pretty popular in Australia, despite the large cost (needs to be sent overseas for analysis); around 75% of my baby group has or intends to get it. I'm waiting on a phone call tomorrow to find out the results.

I think in the UK people only tend to get it if their 12 week screening result comes back as high risk and they don’t want to have a cvs due to the miscarriage risk. My 12 week results have always been low risk so no reason to spend the money on any additional testing! There were 9 in my NCT group and none of us had it...

Have you had your 12 week tests and been worried by the results?

No. Most of us here get it at around 10 weeks (I couldn't get in earlier) and the 12 week scan as well. I was just curious about the differences between Oz and the UK.

It's not subsidised in any way and costs $300-$500, but we do get to find out the sex earlier.

I had it in a previous pregnancy as I thought I was going to miss the 12wk scan. Cost £400 but decided not to find out sex. It was low risk but ended up having amnio anyway as serious issues were picked up at 20 weeks.

For my recent pregnancy I decided not to have it and just go straight for cvs\amnio if issues were picked up as nipt doesn't screen for as much. Luckily dd was perfectly healthy and no issues were seen.

I had mine done last night at a local private business. She’s fairly new to the area and said not many people have heard of it here, compared to where she was before in the UK. So it might be regional and people may be slowly learning about it.

I think the high cost puts people off and they don’t want to waste the money if the NT year comes back low risk. We debated for a while because of this but decided to go ahead with the Harmony.

Some trusts are offering Harmony of your NT results come back as high risk. I believe ours plans to but is not doing so currently.

Yes, I’ve had it with both of my pregnancies. The results are much more accurate than the NHS screening test.

How early did you have it?

I had it at 11+2 - I was 37 when I got pregnant and we decided that we’d rather pay privately for a more accurate test than wait for NHS screening. The Harmony gave us a low risk result so I declined the NHS tests.

I had it prior to my first NHS scan. I would probably do it again for the peace of mind. We also found out the sex.

Peace of mind is also one of the reasons we choose to do it. I've had very few symptoms, so it feels surreal. Granted, I I had so much difficulty with booking the test that I ended up having the blood taken the day before, but it's still worth it. I ended up having three scans that week; OB, before bloods and the extensive 12 week scan.

I still can't believe I'm actually pregnant. I thought I would be infertile or need IvF like my mum and sister. I thought it would be okay to be careless with contraception.

We got it at 10 weeks, just for piece of mind. Really glad we did, at that early stage I was glad to go to as many scans as I could, even if it was costly.

We paid £400 for it after having high risk results from the nhs 12week scan. We were put off from having the CVS due to miscarriage risk. The harmony came back low risk and we found out the sex at 14ish weeks which was nice. Would not have done it without the high risk from nhs testing though. £400 is a lot of money.

I'm actually surprised at the cost of the test. I just checked a currency converter, and 400 pounds is just over 700 dollars! We pay the equivalent of around 250 pounds

I had it done on the NHS. At Kings hospital they are running a research project where they offer it to anyone with a result of less that 1:500. I was 1:484 which is still classed as low risk and the doctors assured me under normal circumstances I would never have been referred for further testing. So although I didn't need it, it gave me peace of mind and my updated results were 1:10,000. I can't say whether I would have forked out the extra £400 it would have cost to have it done privately however as I never had to make that choice.

I had it done privately in Portugal (for a bit less than 300 euros).
Despite being low risk, I wanted a more reliable test than simply nuchal transparency as I knew someone who gave birth to a child with Downs despite a good NT test.

I'm booked to have it done in about 10 days when I'll be 10 1/2 weeks... due to my age the nhs combined test will probably come back high risk and i'd rather know earlier if there's anything to worry about... it is expensive though!

In my trust, if you come back with a high risk, they offer a version of the test. It’s called Reflex DNA. Mine cane back at 1:2100 which I think sounds quite high but apparently isn’t. Not sure whether to have further tests or not.

I had it done privately at 10 weeks for peace of mind, as two close friends had trisomy 13 and 18 respectively and that was playing on my mind. I know in my area it is offered on the NHS to people who have a high risk result from the NHS tests for trisomies. My midwife said she had heard of it but didn’t know much about it. I think the cost is the reason it isn’t standard on the NHS, as the accuracy is very high. I looked at the info from ARC about NIPT beforehand which I thought was useful: www.arc-uk.org/