High Risk Pregnancy chance 1 in 7 risk Down syndrome

[sterlihalla]

Hi everyone, i hope its ok for perspective Dad's to post on here. Me and my wife are going through her pregnancy and it has been one of the most stressful periods of my life. She is also stressed but i have been able to calm her down but i seem to be feeling it a little bit more at the moment. I just felt like posting on here just to hear some success stories and advice.
My wife is 32 soon to be 33 in June, she is mixed race and this is her first baby. When we went for our 12 week scan we couldnt get the NT measurement because the baby was the wrong way round and would not move. She were offered the quad test. Here results were below:

Marker Corr MoM Pattern
AFP
0.67
Low
hCG
3.25
High
Inhibin-A
1.12
Slightly high
uE3
0.50
Low
Risk
1 in 7
Higher-chance screen

I managed to take a sneeky picture of these results even though i probably was not allowed to but i needed to know why she was higher risk. Has anyone ever had similar quad results and been ok? or can share a similar story?
She also has rhesus negative blood which can be a problem because i am O positive. Has anyone dealt with that before too?

WTF ?

It’s a horribly stressful time OP and it’s natural to look for ‘positive’ stories but none of that really changes anything, you just need to wait for the next set of results (NIPT in your case) and try to both keep calm in the mean time.

I was 31 when I had my second child, our screening results placed her at 1 in 3 chance of Down’s Syndrome. I had the NIPT and whilst waiting for the results I spent a lot of time researching Down’s Syndrome and thinking about the future. My NIPT came back positive, my husband and I were in agreement that we wanted to continue the pregnancy and our daughter is now 10. Happy to answer any questions you may have about Down’s Syndrome.

Wishing you and your wife peace with the waiting, with your decisions to come, and with the rest of her pregnancy.

I’ve reported the disgusting comment above, hopefully will be deleted soon.

What did they say? I guess its a sign of things to come if we are positive.

No it was an awful post about women who might consider abortion.

No, it wasn’t about Down’s Syndrome, it was about abortion. Not everyone is pro-choice (I am) but even so there is a time, place and manner for these opinions!

When I was in your situation, I was desperate for answers of any kind. I searched the internet for people in my situation, people who had the same screening results, people who chose to have the baby, people who chose to abort, and so on. I have no problem sharing my experience if it helps others out there - even if others disagree with my decision. It was a difficult time and a life-changing experience, as it changed my entire way of thinking about having children, my thoughts about genetics, and really just life in general.

I’ve been in a similar position, it’s a stressful time. Waiting is the worst. As a pp says, remember 1 in 7 means 86% chance of all being fine.

NIPT is pretty accurate but a CVS or amnio is even more so. You might want to use this waiting time to research accuracy levels and decide whether you would like a CVS/amnio as backup even if the NIPT is negative.

I had a CVS with my first DC (NIPT not available back then) and it’s somewhat painful and carries a miscarriage risk - although the miscarriage risk is much lower if you get it done by someone that does them very very frequently. So again, if you are going for a CVS/amnio, use this time to think about where to have it done. (If like me you are a person who likes to get as much info as possible).

How did it go? I can relate this has changed everything

I had NIPT (the blood test) which showed as normal/ not downs and my baby was conpletely healthy.

We decided wed keep him even if it was positive for downs though

there is a really lovely (recently updated) thread on here with basically the same OP.

the baby did have DS and the OP was, understandably, distraught. However, she kept the baby and posts the most lovely updates about her son. I think the baby might be called Caleb (so you can search).

im 100% pro choice and you need to do what is best for you but you were looking for positive stories about DS diagnosis and it really is lovely so thought I’d share

At this stage, try to focus on the fact that you will get a definitive answer nice and early and can think it through carefully and make the choice. I have a young relative with Down syndrome (born in a country with no testing) and the parents didn’t know until the baby was born. The baby is much-loved, but it was a massive shock and they had no time to prepare mentally, let alone make the choice about whether to terminate had they known early on the pregnancy.

Are the two children healthy? Did you have similar risks with the other two births?

Yes, my two children are healthy (that I know of) - this is kind of one of the things that I think a lot about now. The fact that you can never be sure that your kids won’t become sick or have some sort of unknown chromosomal issue. I did the cvs again with my second pregnancy= normal chromosomes, and then I did nipt with my third pregnancy which said that there was a risk of triple x syndrome. So I did the amnio and that showed normal chromosomes (the triple x was in the placenta only). But my experience with pregnancy, prenatal screening, waiting for results, making hard decisions and so on is a part of the reason I’m not having any more children.

Totally understand. Congrats on having two healthy children.

Update *
Came back as low risk! Thank you all for your support. We understand there isnt always positive news but i thought it was useful to share our experience.

Down syndrome can happen at any age, it is just more common as with older parents. .

Very glad to hear that OP! Hope the rest is smooth sailing for you.

My youngest is now mid- twenties so my experience is now very dated. ( This was my third so also not similar to your situation). I forget all the stats that we were told but they were a concern so we went for amniocentesis, which was quite an emotional thing. But my husband and I had discussed and agreed in advance that if things looked worrying then I would have aborted. I think you need to come to a joint agreement about the "what ifs" when you start thinking of amniocentesis. Best wishes.