Down syndrome screening is a way of testing whether chromosomes are healthy. However, screening also has a certain period of time, and if it is done in advance or delayed, it can greatly affect the accuracy of the examination. Therefore, when conducting Down syndrome screening, it is important to control the timing and not miss it. For women who are pregnant for the first time, they also want to know when to do Down syndrome screening.
Starting from 14 weeks of pregnancy, as expectant mothers, we have a very important screening test for Down syndrome among all normal pregnant women. Down syndrome is a congenital fetal malformation that we often see in clinical practice. It is caused by the formation of chromosomes during development and is called trisomy 21.
In the normal reproductive age population, the probability of the occurrence of trisomy 21 is one in 800 to one in 1000, and there is no obvious genetic predisposition. Therefore, once such a child is born in the family, it will bring a heavy burden to the family and society. Due to its incidence ranging from one in eight hundred to one in a thousand, with no obvious genetic predisposition, and the fact that children are severely intellectually impaired after birth, its impact on families and society is significant. Generally, we recommend that expectant mothers go to the hospital for this type of examination between 14 and 20 weeks of pregnancy.
How much does Down syndrome screening cost? Down syndrome screening is a non mandatory item. It is to detect the concentration of alpha fetoprotein (AFP) and human chorionic gonadotropin (β - hCG) in the blood of expectant mothers to see if there are chromosomal abnormalities in the fetus.
If you want to undergo Down syndrome screening, it is best to do it between the 16th and 18th week of pregnancy. If it is done earlier or later, it may affect the accuracy of the results. Therefore, we can only perform a puncture examination, which can be more complicated. If Down syndrome screening finds problems with the baby's development, we also need to adopt rational methods to solve them.
