Pregnancy & Parenting

Should I have had this done? I was told to not worry about it. I think it's too late for me to do it. Testing for diseases like down syndrome or stuff like that?

Your doctor can more fully advise you on whether or not you are a good candidate.  Are you over 35?  Are you a carrier for any genetic disease?  Did your quad-screen come back indicating a high likelihood of an issue?

For my part, I would only have an amnio if the results were going to determine whether or not I was going to terminate the pregnancy.  There is a risk in any procedure and if it isn't going to cause me to end the pregnancy, I'm not risking my babe.

Others will say that it is good to be prepared, even if you aren't going to terminate.  It is good to know your baby has CF, so that you can opt to deliver in a suitable environment, for example hospital instead of birth center.  It is helpful to know if the baby you are carrying has DS, so that you can read up on the syndrome and come to terms with it prior to the birth. 

Those are all valid points.  It's for your doctor and you to determine, though.

Personally I didn't have the test.  I was on a birth club board with about 300 other women and we had an "AFP" thread to see who's results, or positive and actually resulted in a problem.  I was several weeks behind the other women on the board so I found out that the AFP test gave a lot of false positives!. So many moms truly though there was something worng with thier baby and it was nothing. 

Also in many states by the time you do the test its too late to have an abortion. So truly whats the point, to worry over something for the next 7 months.  Not worth it.

Also my OB at the time told me the test wasn't really needed. Usually there were other signs of things being wrong. Like not measuring properly, low amniotic fluid. 

Original Post by weddingmama:

Personally I didn't have the test.  I was on a birth club board with about 300 other women and we had an "AFP" thread to see who's results, or positive and actually resulted in a problem.  I was several weeks behind the other women on the board so I found out that the AFP test gave a lot of false positives!. So many moms truly though there was something worng with thier baby and it was nothing. 

Also in many states by the time you do the test its too late to have an abortion. So truly whats the point, to worry over something for the next 7 months.  Not worth it.

Also my OB at the time told me the test wasn't really needed. Usually there were other signs of things being wrong. Like not measuring properly, low amniotic fluid. 

 The AFP, or triple screen, or quad screen - depending on what type of tests your lab runs - does not give "false positives".  It provides a ratio to indicate the likelihood of certain fetal problems.  If that ratio comes back 1:1000, your baby has a 99.9% chance of not having that particular problem, but the doctor may wish to pursue further testing.  If that ratio comes back 1:60, your baby still has a high chance of not having that particular problem, but the doctor is almost guaranteed to push further testing.

There are many reasons that the ratio might come back higher than it should be - including twins, and miscalculated fetal age.

All that said, I didn't have that particular test run either.  My doctor wanted me to and I refused.

With the first, I had just been diagnosed a Cystic Fibrosis carrier.  My spouse was to be tested and if he were a carrier we were going to be pushed to have an amnio.  We decided before his results came back that we were not going to have the amnio under any circumstances.  If our baby had CF, we would not terminate.  (I have a 35 year old cousin with CF, so I'm aware of the life that entails.)

It was then that the doc tried to schedule me for the quad screen.  I just didn't want to give her anymore ammo for pushing me into a test I didn't want, so I opted out.

Second time around, I felt the same.  I wasn't going to terminate and I would deal with the issues as they came.  I opted out again.

Something to note regarding both of these pregnancies:  I was in my 20's - not AMA.  I was also having intense u/s monitoring during both (for different reasons).  I was confident that signs of Downs (soft markers) would be seen on those scans - if they were present.  Those factors went into my decision making.