Prenatal Diagnostics
Prenatal tests are part of extended prenatal diagnostics. Prenatal diagnostics is the examination and early detection of diseases before the birth of the child in the womb. The examination can be carried out either on the foetus itself or on the mother, for example, the mother’s blood.
These examinations can be non-invasive and invasive. Non-invasive procedures are harmless and are performed from the outside. The most common methods of prenatal diagnostics are various types of ultrasound during pregnancy, as well as nuchal translucency measurements, nasal bone measurements and blood tests of the mother.
Invasive diagnostic procedures mainly include punctures and biopsies of the umbilical cord, placenta and examination of the amniotic fluid of the foetus. Some of these screening procedures are common routine examinations during pregnancy, others may be performed additionally if there is a reasonable suspicion of disease in the unborn child. Most examinations can only be performed after the end of the third month of pregnancy. According to the current state of knowledge, non-invasive procedures pose no risks to the child. Invasive methods carry a low risk of minor complications and even miscarriage of the child.
Advantages and disadvantages of prenatal diagnostics
Prenatal diagnostics, especially prenatal testing, is controversial in large parts of the Western world, as the detection of some diseases and the resulting subsequent decisions, such as abortion, raise ethical questions. In any case, the tests are useful in detecting diseases that are easily treatable and would otherwise lead to serious health problems. These include in particular malformations of the child that can be corrected immediately or after birth.
Metabolic diseases are also possible, which can be easily treated with a targeted therapy, but can cause serious damage if left untreated. With the help of prenatal tests, however, it is also possible to identify numerous disabilities which do not directly endanger the health of the fetus, but which, medically and personally, enormously restrict the life of the parents and the child. The most prominent example is trisomy 21 (Down syndrome).
Inevitably, the wide range of prenatal tests also leads to an increased rate of deliberately induced abortions. Fetal diagnosis is also offered especially for expectant parents who have an increased probability of genetic diseases. Especially in the case of serious genetic diseases of the family, it can be detected in advance whether an unborn child has inherited the affected gene. Test procedures exist today for more than 1000 hereditary diseases.
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