Addressing myths on prenatal genetic testing

Prenatal genetic testing is now fairly reasonably priced and being more and more used for enhancing reproductive outcomes in each pregnant girl as genetic testing prenatally, a.okay.a earlier than beginning has given the chance to display for a wide range of extreme genetic abnormalities and take obligatory motion in time. This helps in stopping the beginning of youngsters with genetic beginning defects thus saving monetary and emotional burden on the household.

With the arrival of such testing, {couples} at the moment are capable of get hold of details about genetic problems of their foetus and make an knowledgeable resolution about the identical. In an interview with HT Lifestyle, Dr Veronica Arora, Assistant Consultant at Institute of Medical Genetics and Genomics at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, revealed, “Genetic testing is not offered to obtain information about the foetus to predict non-disease-related traits. Such practice is strongly condemned. Some common myths about prenatal genetic testing include that it is only done for older women, it is very expensive, it is only done for Down syndrome, not required in the absence of family history, or done only for high-risk women.”

Highlighting that testing within the prenatal situation contains non-invasive and invasive genetic exams, she elaborated –

• Non-invasive exams: Biochemical markers, non-invasive prenatal screening are these that are carried out on the blood of the mom. Testing for frequent aneuploidies and thalassemia is included on this class, and these are supplied universally to all pregnant girls.
• Invasive genetic testing: Amniocentesis or Chorionic villus sampling is proscribed to fetuses liable to having a genetic dysfunction. This contains these in danger as a consequence of constructive household historical past, superior maternal age, constructive screening exams for aneuploidies or ultrasound abnormalities.

Addressing myths on prenatal genetic testing, Dr Ramesh Hariharan, CEO and Co-Founder of Strand Life Sciences, shared –

1. Prenatal genetic testing might help decide if the newborn, whereas nonetheless within the mom’s womb, has a genetic abnormality.
2. Pre-natal testing needn’t be invasive for the newborn; some abnormalities within the child might be detected from the mom’s blood; these embody giant scale genomic abnormalities that trigger Down’s syndrome.
3. Not all abnormalities might be simply detected from the mom’s blood although, significantly finer genetic abnormalities, these may have a process known as amniocentesis or CVS to entry cells from the newborn.
4. All constructive outcomes detected from mom’s blood needs to be confirmed by an amnio or CVS.