Prenatal Screening
Prenatal care is vital in ensuring the healthy growth and development of your baby. Regular visits to your health care provider aim to monitor your baby’s progress and identify any potential problems before they become serious. Prenatal screening can provide you with more information about the health of your baby than medical examinations alone.
The Center for Fetal Medicine and Women’s Ultrasound is one of the state’s premiere centers for comprehensive prenatal services. We are dedicated to providing our patients with the highest level of specialized consultative care throughout their pregnancies, using the most advanced technology to provide these services. Our highly skilled team consists of board-certified maternal-fetal medicine specialists, a board-certified medical geneticist, perinatal sonographers, genetic counselors, and a certified diabetic educator and nutritionist, all of whom will work closely with your health care provider to provide comprehensive high-risk obstetric consultative services and compassionate care. There are important differences between genetic screening and diagnostic testing options. A genetic counselor can help you better understand these differences.
First and second trimester screening
The California Prenatal Screening Program (www.cdph.ca.gov) provides information about the risk that the fetus may have certain conditions, including chromosome abnormalities, genetic disorders, and birth defects, through first and second trimester screening. This testing can occur in both the first and/or second trimesters of pregnancy and may include blood work, ultrasound, or both. Genetic counselors are available at our center should you have a screen positive (high-risk) result or wish to discuss your testing in more detail. Go to mytestingoptions.com
Cell-Free DNA Testing/NIPT
Cell-free DNA testing (aka non-invasive prenatal screening) is another technology to screen for Down syndrome as well as chromosome conditions, without a risk of miscarriage to the pregnancy. Blood from the patient is drawn any time after 10 weeks of pregnancy and results are available within approximately 10 days. The detection rate for Down syndrome is higher than with routine prenatal screening, such as the California prenatal screen, but is still not as accurate or comprehensive as an invasive procedure such as CVS or amniocentesis.
