antenatal screening - plain english for tired and emotional mum PLEASE

[claire7471]

Hi there,

is there anyone out there with a grasp of numbers who can explain to me in plain english the relative risks and accuracy of different antenatal screening procedures for Downs.

Don't know if its being pregnant but my brain has turned to mush, can't get my head round it at all!!!!

basically I'm 8 weeks pregnant so beginning to think about these things. will be 37 when baby born so higher risk but have a 21 month old unaffected child. in the last pregnancy midwives 'forgot' i.e f**ed up the triple test and didn't let on till it was too late which i found very stressful...

was thinking about going to a local private screening centre for other test to avoid worry this time....got a leaflet offering an Early Nuchal scan and or Addmark and or Intmark all which seem to have different accuracy rates.

what are my options ? someone with a brain please point me in the right direction.....!

Not sure I have a functional brain at 20 weeks pg but can tell you what I did. My local NHS offers 12 wk nuchal scan which I had. They don't offer anything else, no blood or triple test. I am 37 and got a result of 1:750 which I did not find very comforting, although it might seem quite acceptable to others.

I spoke to the screening advisor who told me the most accurate test is OSCAR (One Stop Centre for the Assessment of Risk). This is a combination of nuchal scan, blood test and nasal bone measurement. There are very few places that offer it, it is licenced by the Foetal Medicine Foundation who own the software that does the calculations from the measurements. It costs about £200. I had it and got a revised risk of 1:3000. It is 95% accurate compared with 75% on nuchal scan alone.

If I were you I would have the best test offered on the NHS first, as early as possible, and if you are concerned with the results then a private screening centre should be able to see you at short notice within the critical period.

Having said that, it all depends on what you would do if you got a high risk result - you should always think about that quite carefully before asking the question!!

Hope that helps....
J