Genetic technology used to comb mother's blood for fetal DNA

sea-maid submitted, created time 2 months 4 weeks (www.nature.com)

A blood test that uses next-generation sequencing technology that can identify tiny amounts of fetal DNA floating around in the mother's blood could one day replace more invasive methods as a prenatal test for Down's syndrome and other chromosomal disorders, researchers say.

At present, the two means of pre-natal testing for Down's syndrome, amniocentesis and chorionic villi sampling, both carry a slight risk of miscarriage.

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A drive to lower the incidence of multiple births in fertility treatments

Darkfrog submitted, created time 10 months 2 weeks (www.nytimes.com)

Doctors employing in vitro fertilization tend to implant several healthy embryos in the hopes that at least one will end up as a full-term healthy baby. However, this technique often leads to multiple births. Women carrying three or more children have a dramatically increased risk of health problems, premature birth and miscarriage, to the point where doctors often recommend "reducing," or selectively aborting one of the fetuses once it becomes apparent that triplets or more are on the way

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Study linkes abortion to low birth weight, but equates abortion and miscarriage

Darkfrog submitted, created time 1 year 2 weeks (www.time.com)

Although a few previous studies have linked abortion to low birth weight and premature birth (both of which strongly affect a child's ability to survive) in a woman's later pregnancies, this is the first one that has a pool of data large enough to adjust for things like the woman's socioeconomic status, marital status, size and weight and other factors that can also affect birth weight. Although this puts it miles ahead of other studies, it still has one major problem: It does not distinguish between induced abortion and spontaneous abortion (AKA miscarriage)

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Down's syndrome test eliminates miscarriage risk

amanda submitted, created time 1 year 11 months (www.reutershealth.com)

A new non-invasive test that examines fetal DNA can pick up genetic abnormalities such as Down's syndrome and, unlike more intrusive tests that may raise the risk of miscarriage, the new diagnostic tool developed by the US company Ravgen poses no threat to the mother or fetus.

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