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May 2013 Moms
Backtracking a bit - Quad screen
First of all, it's a girl -- since I haven't done one of those posts and hadn't really planned to. Second of all, I had blood drawn for a quad screen at my 14 weeks 6 day appointment. I went in last week for my 20 week appt and my doctor informed me the lab wouldn't run the bloodwork because I wasn't at least 15 weeks. Why she allowed me to have my blood taken knowing that really irritates me, but I digress. I had my blood drawn again last week and she called today to say my levels were abnormal and I'm at an elevated risk for Down Syndrome, 1 in 215. We didn't have the NT scan done, but I wanted to still be prepared which is why we opted for the Quad. I'm not overly concerned after looking online, but I am only 26 and a little surprised by the odds so we are going to have the MaterniT21 test done tomorrow.
I have a hard time searching the specific boards on here; when I do, it always comes up with no results.... I did a general Google search and I saw where some people said that generally, anything less than 1 in 200 isn't considered positive - but I don't know if that's based on age. Does anyone have any more specific information or already went through this?
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Re: Backtracking a bit - Quad screen
The MaterniT21 is a good choice.
I had the NT and sequential screening done. The first draw was at 12 weeks and the second had to be done at 16. I think the quad is similiar in this regard. My doctor said they consider anything under 1/250 to be "positive" and recommend additional testing. And yes, maternal age is one the factors they take into consideration when calculating your odds.
Good luck!
I will likely be 42 when I deliver and my odds were 1:80 based on age alone. I was offered the MaterniT21 test at my first visit and took it at 11.5 weeks. It took 8 days to get the results and they were negative.
I know it's easier said than done, but try not to worry. I don't think the odds you were given are that alarming, but I am glad you have moved forward with the MaterniT21 test.
Thanks everyone. I'm not overly concerned because 1 in 215 odds are still really good odds, and we had our A/S before we even found out, and the tech said everything looked great as far as she could tell. I actually would have preferred to just do the MaterniT21 over the Quad but the doctor said I couldn't unless I was over 35 or there was already an increased risk so we had to do the Quad first.
Now that I'm seeing 1 in 250 as the negative vs. positive, that seems to be turning up a lot more when I search.
No matter what happens we'll still be happy to have this baby girl, but we live out of state with no family, so we just want to be 100% prepared. This might want to make us move closer to family, especially with it being our first born.
We have our MaterniT21 test tomorrow at 2:30 and I'm not going to stress. Just wanted some more insight!
We just went through this too! We decided to get a sequential screen (which I believe is similar to quad screen). I am 29 and we came in at a 1:310 risk..which isn't technically considered abnormal but pretty significantly elevated from my age related risk which was something like 1:710. Shortly after those results were in, we had our A/S that showed an EIF or bright spot on our little girl's heart (a very soft marker for DS).
My genetic counselor explained it like this..had our A/S been completely normal, our risk would have jumped back up to around 1:600. But, because we had the EIF show up...we weren't able to say, statisitically speaking, that our risk was lower. At that point, DH and I opted for the MaterniT21 test. I'm glad we did because we had the results in 7 days and everything came back normal!!
Moral of the story...I agree with the others, your odds are still very small, especially given your normal A/S. But I also know what its like to have the seed of uncertainty planted...no fun! Hang in there, try to keep things in perspective and good call on the MaterniT21...I'm sure everything is just fine with your LO.