How many weeks does sugar screening take?

Most of the examinations such as Down syndrome screening require going to the hospital for relevant examinations in the early stages of pregnancy to ensure whether you are pregnant with a fetus with Down syndrome. If confirmed, the pregnancy must be terminated to avoid giving birth to such a child. Especially for older mothers, they should pay more attention because pregnant women at this age are more likely to have this disease.

How many weeks should I do the sugar screening?

Down syndrome screening can detect 60-70% of children with Down syndrome. It should be made clear that the Down syndrome screening test can only help determine the chance that the fetus has Down syndrome, but it cannot determine whether the fetus has Down syndrome. That is to say, when the blood test index is high, the chance of having a Down syndrome baby is higher, but it does not mean that there must be something wrong with the fetus. Just as older pregnant women over 35 years old have a higher chance of having Down syndrome babies, it does not mean that their fetuses will definitely have problems. On the other hand, even if the test index is normal, it cannot guarantee that the fetus will not be sick.

Pregnant women whose Down syndrome screening index exceeds the normal level should undergo amniocentesis or chorionic villus sampling. Only if the results of amniocentesis or chorionic villus sampling are normal can the possibility of Down syndrome be 100% ruled out.

With the continuous development of technology, in addition to Down syndrome screening, non-invasive prenatal genetic testing can now be used to detect Down syndrome and chromosome 18 and 13 abnormalities. Non-invasive prenatal genetic testing can detect more than 99% of babies with Down syndrome. Like Down syndrome screening, the test only requires a blood draw from the arm, avoiding the increased risk of miscarriage caused by amniocentesis or chorionic villus sampling. For older pregnant women and those at high risk of Down syndrome, non-invasive prenatal genetic testing is another new option to amniocentesis. For ordinary pregnant women, non-invasive prenatal genetic testing can also be used as a better method for Down syndrome screening.

Fetuses with Down syndrome are not exclusive to older pregnant women. Although older pregnant women over 35 years old are closely related to Down syndrome, the older the age, the greater the chance of giving birth to a child with Down syndrome. However, young women may also give birth to children with Down syndrome, and only 20% of Down syndrome occurs in older pregnant women, while the other 80% of Down syndrome fetuses are born to young pregnant women under 35 years old. Therefore, if only older pregnant women are examined, it will not be a good way to prevent Down syndrome.