Are you pregnant or planning a pregnancy soon? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you would get to know in advance when your body is fit enough to breeze through all the stages of pregnancy? What if you could get a closer look into your foetus’s development during gestation and rule out any possible health concerns? Well, there is a scientific procedure called genetic screening that makes all of this possible.
It doesn’t matter if you’re in your 20s or 30s, physically strong or weak, there could be ‘n’ number of factors acting on molecular or genetic levels that could pose high risks to your baby’s development. To rule out these risk factors, your gynaecologist may prescribe genetic screening. Genetic screening or prenatal screening usually involves a chromosome blood test during pregnancy to check your foetus for medical conditions. Even if you aren’t pregnant now but planning a pregnancy soon, genetic carrier screenings can help you and your partner determine if your child could possibly develop a genetic disorder due to faulty gene combinations- often a result of an undiagnosed genetic disorder in the family history.
A chromosome blood test during pregnancy can put you at ease because you would get to know:
- About your baby’s health & possible genetic constitution.
- How to progress with the different stages of pregnancy.
- How to prepare your body for planning future pregnancies.
- How to manage your baby’s special needs, in case he/she is diagnosed with a genetic problem.
- Use this information as a base to make decisions during your pregnancy.
At Genes2Me, genetic screening is conducted at the initial stages of pregnancy to check for any genetic abnormalities occurring during pregnancy. A series of serum screening tests (Double marker, Triple marker, Quadruple marker tests) are conducted at different trimesters to confirm results. In case of a high-risk report result, expecting mothers may opt for other confirmatory invasive/non-invasive tests before taking any decision.
These chromosome blood tests can determine if your child may suffer from chromosomal aberrations (change in structure or number of chromosomes), causing genetic disorders like:
- Edward Syndrome (Trisomy 18)
- Down Syndrome (Trisomy 21)
- Neural tube defects (problems in brain and spinal cord)
- Tay-Sachs disease (neural disability)
- Sickle cell disease (blood cell deformity)
- Fragile X syndrome (intellectual disability)
- Cystic fibrosis (life-threatening lung disorder) etc.
‘MyFitBabyPlus‘ is one of the unique offerings by Genese2Me that covers the entire pregnancy journey of the mother and child. It includes maternal serum screening, NBS (newborn screening), routine pregnancy screenings nay more tests, which cover all the health aspects of gestating mother and unborn foetus.
If your gynaecologist has already prescribed one of these tests, it doesn’t mean there is something wrong with your child, but they’re conducted with other screening tests to make sure that everything is okay with your child. You can visit genes2me.com to find out more about the pros & cons of genetic screening, or to book a test. These test results can help you build knowledge about genetic disorders and give expecting parents sufficient time to decide whether they want to terminate the pregnancy or plan medical care for your child in the future.
