NIPT- Harmony, Iona, Nifty and others?

[Angeldelight21]

Hi everone, I'm planning to do a Nipt test but super confused about the options and the different brands/ labratories available.

Would you be able to advise what did you chose and why? Many thanks in advance.

It depends how detailed you want to be and also how many babies you are carrying.

If you are having multiples then it would usually have to be panorama/natera as the technique they use allows them to separate the two, but under normal circumstances after seeing the many issues people have with panorama I wouldn't use them myself. They also inflate their statistics which can cause a lot of worry.

I am based in Asia but I wanted to do a whole genome sequencing where they look at all the 23 pairs of chromosomes and look for microdeletions too. I used Sofiva which uses Illumina technologies and techniques. Other companies use Illumina technology too like verifi, Qualifi. After having a previous baby with a chromosome issue we wanted to be as thorough as possible

If you are only wanting to just check for the 'main three', ie Trimosmys 21, 13 and 18 plus sex chromosome abnormalities then harmony will do that. I haven't heard of the others you mentioned.

It is worth having a look at the r/NIPT subreddit for more information. The mods there are very knowledgeable about everything NIPT and can give a way better answer to your question than I can!

I had a SAFE nipt done.

I chose this after a lot of research. Their statistics were great, and as I have a slightly higher bmi, this was also the best test for that reason as they only require a 2% sample of fetal fraction DNA from the mothers blood, as opposed to 4% required by the others.

I’d previously had a harmony test carried out which came back as inconclusive due not not enough FFDNA.

The whole experience of the harmony test was poor. The scan was very basic, was just a ‘here look at your cute baby’ sort of thing.

We’d only chosen it because it was local to us and cheaper.

In hindsight I wish we’d booked the SAFE from the start. We had to pay more for it, and travel to London for it as there are only a few clinics that offered it, but I’m so glad we did. The whole appointment was professional and carried out by a trained doctor. The scan was so unbelievably thorough, more detailed than any nhs scan I’ve had.
We had the results through on the 7th calendar day following the test.

I’m now 27 weeks and all is well!

Thank you for your replies.

Can I please ask was the Nipt test called Prenatal safe or just Safe? Would you mind to share the name of the clinic in London you were happy with. Many thanks

So I had my SAFE nipt done through The Birth Company on Harley Street in London. I booked it via their website. But from start to finish the staff were fantastic and professional and I felt SO looked after. 100% would recommend.
I had a phone call first with my results, and they’d told me to expect a call so as not to worry me. Some places only call if bad results. Whereas they call regardless. Once they’d given me results over the phone they emailed the full report to me.